Flash by Northwest
by Merlin Missy
Summary: Cowritten with Dotfic.  The Big Seven are trapped inside a world created by a magical artifact.  As the body count rises, familiar faces hide deadly secrets and only Flash can save them.
1. Prologue

Flash By Northwest  
a Justice League story  
by Dotfic and Merlin Missy  
Copyright 2007  
TV-14 (DSLV)

Disclaimer: DC Comics and Warner Brothers own the characters and situations. No infringement on their property is intended or should be inferred.

Continuity/Spoilers: Takes place after JLU "Destroyer" and the events of the flashback in "Batman Beyond: Return of the Joker"

Thanks to Amilyn for her beta on this work. All mistakes that may still be found herein are ours alone.

Pairings: Lots. If it was canon, if it was implied in canon --- heck, if we just thought it was amusing at the time --- it's in there.

Summary: The Big Seven (plus one) are trapped inside a world created by a magical artifact. As the body count rises, familiar faces hide deadly secrets and it's up to Flash to save them.

* * *

Prologue

* * *

"You're not having dinner with Bruce Wayne."

"I think you meant to rephrase that, because it sounded like you just gave me an order." Mari put on a pleasant smile for the benefit of anyone watching. Here on the Watchtower, rumors orbited the Earth faster than the satellite did.

John's frown deepened. She tensed, then took John's hand because it was better than smacking him. "It's just business, Boo. His secretary set it up. He read that interview I gave last month about the girls' program, and now the Wayne Foundation wants to give us a little funding and publicity."

"Yeah." If disbelief was a color, his uniform would have been making a whole new fashion statement.

Mari counted backwards from ten in her head, and then again in French before she spoke. "I wasn't asking permission. I was telling you my plans for tonight. You have watch until midnight anyway so unless you were planning on retasking a satellite to follow me around this evening, you wouldn't even have known."

She didn't bring up the last time she'd been on a slow late evening watch and had called to find out John "happened" to be with Shayera fighting Copperhead and Cheetah.

"You don't know him," John said. "He's up to something."

"I thought Batman was the paranoid one."

John dropped his glower to glance at her curiously until she let out an exasperated breath.

"I'll talk to you later when you're not acting like an idiot." And without looking back, she walked away from him. Not until he was well out of sight and earshot did she rest against a corridor wall and close her eyes.

John had told her about his little future hop with Batman and what, or rather _whom_, he'd seen. He'd told her it didn't matter, it wasn't a real future, just one possibility. If she hadn't spent the last two years picking up on his tells, she might've believed him.

Her head hurt, and the founders' private conference room was just a few doors down. It wouldn't be occupied for at least an hour; John had come up here early for a meeting, and Mari was just getting off-shift.

She went inside.

The lights brightened automatically in reaction to her presence. She went to sit at the table, and stopped herself. That table was magic in its way. Decisions that changed the world were made there. Plenty of arguments, too. That table meant responsibility, and power, and yes, justice. Admittedly, the majestic effect was spoiled by a pile of unread mail stacked at one end. The mail guys brought up fan letters sometimes, business proposals, marriage proposals, treaties, referendums.

They didn't have assigned chairs, but she knew the two of them sat together more often than not. It shouldn't bother her, but it did, and if John was going to be upset over what was really just a nice gesture on Mr. Wayne's part, then Mari could spare a few minutes to be angry right back.

There was a small package, coming open at one end. Probably had been opened and inspected already by the staff, she figured. Curiosity getting the better of her, she nudged the package the rest of the way open.

It was a book. Hardback, cheap but well-wearing yellow binding, with the gold-lettered title and author's name both too faded to make out. Mari flipped the cover open, idly glancing at the text.

And died.

* * *


	2. Chapter 1

* * *

Chapter One

* * *

Despite being the fastest man alive, Wally had a bad habit of being late for meetings. It wasn't his fault, not all the time. But sometimes he had the munchies, or he had to go, or someone stopped him in the corridor knowing the Flash was the friendliest member of the founding seven, and ... 

Not his fault. Totally not. Well, not usually.

Anyway, GL had yelled at him, which was pretty typical, and then _Superman_ had yelled at him, which had sucked, so now Wally was making an effort.

He arrived a good ten minutes before the meeting was due to start, ducked into the conference room long enough for the lights to activate and to see that nobody was there yet, and dashed back to the cafeteria. Ten minutes was more than enough time to grab coffee for everybody, and then he wouldn't only be on time, he'd be on time with caffeine to hand out.

It was like the rest of his superheroing, only this time he was saving the world with half-and-half and sugar.

John had just reached the conference room as Wally got back. "Hey, GL. Coffee?" He set down the tray before he spilled and earned another lecture about Why We Don't Make Life Difficult For The Cleaning Staff.

"Thanks," John managed, the grouchy look on his face not appeased by the Coffee Fairy. Wally privately decided to feed John two more coffees at least before he got anywhere near the rest of the League.

"You okay, buddy?" A second later, he realized that John probably didn't want to talk about whatever it was and more importantly, that Wally really didn't want to know anyway.

"It's fine." John let out something between a grumble and a snort. "Mari's meeting with Bruce later to discuss some investments."

"Well, that's kinda cool." Wally figured all the rich people everywhere knew each other, and hey, as long as none of them minded when he borrowed a few bucks now and then, he was a-okay with them all.

"She doesn't know who he is."

"Oh. You mean ... " Wally put his index fingers on the sides of his head sticking up like bat ears. John nodded. "So just tell her."

"Not my secret. And Bruce probably won't say anything. You know how he is."

"Yeah."

"So he's going to be in his usual secret identity thing, wining and dining her, and laughing at her for not knowing, and I can't tell her."

"He wouldn't do that."

John shrugged. "Maybe." The door opened, and Superman came in with J'onn. Shayera got there a few minutes later, and pointedly didn't say anything to John or sit next to him, but then, they'd been fighting on and off ever since that Shadow Thief guy had turned out to be Hawkman. Wally did get a smile out of her with some coffee, though. Bats and Diana arrived together and last, and no way Wally was going to comment on that (mainly because the last time he had, Diana had told him to drop it and threatened to break his arms).

The coffee was good --- he'd had three shots of chocolate put into his on top of his sugars --- and he noticed the others begin to perk up a little as they fed their favorite group addiction. He drained the last of his and then looked around for something to do while he waited for the meeting to start. Batman had started to leave puzzles in the corner of the room for Wally to play with, mainly to keep him quiet for a few minutes, but a quick check showed him he'd done all of those already.

_Hello, fanmail._ He'd been the one to ask the mail clerks to bring the good stuff up here. Nothing said, "Please don't become fascist overlords" quite like reading letters from third graders saying: "I want to be just like you when I grow up."

Today's haul included a book. Wally opened it, betting himself he could read the whole thing before Batman finished his coffee.

"What's that?" Shayera asked, craning over his shoulder, and Wally opened the cover to read the title.

"_The Cuckoo at Midnight,_" he said, and flipped to the first page. "'It was a dark and stormy night.'"

* * *

It was, in fact, a dark and stormy night. 

Wally knew this because it was dark and he heard thunder, and then a loud clatter that was distinctly unthundery. Then the lights came back on and he heard screams, and that was much, much worse.

Vixen was dead on the floor. A few feet away from her, a gun slowly rotated on the floor as if it had been dropped, or thrown.

His brain froze and then unfroze and he ran to her side, or tried. Everything was wrong; he felt wrong, couldn't get his speed working, and he was ...

He was clearly not on the Watchtower. That was the first thing he latched onto. He was in a crowd of rather well if peculiarly dressed people, in what looked like a mansion. It might've been Bats' place, though he didn't remember that being so big. Thunder still grumbled outside the enormous windows, and Wally couldn't run and there was no way anyone alive looked like that.

God, and John was down there with her, leaning over her in horror as Bruce --- not in the Batsuit, not looming and scary but instead in a white tux --- looked as shocked and scared as Wally felt, pushing past the stupid people who stood around with their mouths open, and seeing Bats scared made it all ten times worse.

* * *

John shook his head, trying to clear it. He'd been sitting at his chair in the conference room, and then it was dark, and now ... 

"Mari!" He was on his knees and didn't realize it, holding her hand, touching her face, trying to get her to respond, knowing she wouldn't. This wasn't possible. This had to be some dream. Still he tried to wake her. "Come on. Mari, don't do this." He could feel the crazy babble start and stilled it. "For God's sake, somebody call an ambulance!"

He felt a hand on his shoulder and he looked back. Wally. Behind him, Shayera was walking towards them slowly, dressed in a blue dress he'd never seen her wear, her expression confused and frightened, edging to angry. Something else was out of place about her.

Dress. John looked down, saw he was in a uniform but not his Lantern Corp uniform. Wally was in a bad tux, Bruce stood beside him in a white tux, a coifed and young-looking redhead clutching his arm. This was all wrong.

Diana came over to Mari's other side, touching her hand and then muttering a quick prayer. She wore a red gown, and her hair was pulled back oddly, and was he really paying attention to everyone's clothes when Mari was dead on the floor beside him?

An older woman, clutching a battered black leather bag, pushed Diana aside and began examining Mari. She let out a breath a moment later. "I'm sorry. There's nothing I can do," she said, and closed Mari's staring eyes.

"Oh, Bruce!" said the redhead in a simpering voice. "This is awful!"

Bruce disentangled his arm from hers and looked at her strangely. "Barbara?"

"Yeah?"

Bruce opened his mouth, then closed it, staring past her into the crowd. John closed his eyes. The pain and grief would come very soon, and he wanted to cling to the numbness as long as he could.

"This isn't real," said Bruce in a low, Bat-voice.

"Looks pretty real to me," said Barbara.

Bruce asked quietly, "Who here was at a meeting just a minute ago?"

John looked up and nodded. Wally raised his hand. Shayera and Diana both came forward, just as Clark and J'onn --- looking more forlorn than usual in his most current human form --- reached them.

"Barbara, Leslie, where were you just now?"

"I was right here," said the redhead.

"Upstairs," said the old woman.

"And you didn't notice anything ... unusual?"

"There's a dead woman on your floor, Bruce. I'd call that pretty strange."

Outside, John heard sirens. How'd they arrive so fast? Bruce said, "Leslie, please take Barbara upstairs and give her something to calm her nerves."

The two women walked away as the large crowd, starting to murmur again, began to press in.

"I don't know what's happening," said Bruce quickly. "But I know this isn't real, and I think the seven of us are the only ones who know it."

"How do you know that?" asked Clark, glancing behind them.

"You have to be sure," John said, knowing he sounded desperate and not caring.

"I'm sure. I just saw two dead people walk by."

* * *

Dead. Joker and Harley were dead. He'd buried Joker with his own hands, and Barbara --- the real Barbara, not this hollow mimic --- claimed to have watched Quinn fall to her death. 

Yet across the room, he'd seen them both. Joker, not scarred by his run-in with the chemicals that had changed everything for him. Napier. By his side, Harleen with a big smile, blonde hair, and a little pink dress that favored those who had no imagination.

So this wasn't real.

Alfred, or someone who looked like Alfred, was at the door with two police officers. More sirens blared from outside. Whatever the reason they'd arrived so quickly, Bruce needed to stall them, charm them, something. He had no doubts that whoever'd killed Vixen was arranging all this, and winding up in an unreal jail cell was not going to help him figure how they were going to get out of this mess.

"Officers!" he said, with a worried smile. "You're just in time. Someone's been shot."

"We heard," said the larger one. Bullock. Clearly, someone was pulling things from Bruce's own mind, but who? Jervis Tetch was in prison, Doctor Destiny was dead. And the seven of them were together; not a bright move on the part of their captors.

"We want statements from everyone," said the smaller cop. "Who saw what?"

Bruce spread his hands, thinking at J'onn: _Get the others back._ "I don't think you're going to have any luck there, officers. The lights were out. No one saw a thing." He glanced around, seeing nods of assent from the partygoers. He recognized most of them: socialites from his one life, unmasked superheroes from the other.

"We'll see about that," Bullock said, pushing him with a rough finger. "We've known you were dirty for a long time, Wayne. I hope they nail you for this one."

"Harvey," said Barbara, coming back down the stairs, "don't you yell at Brucie like that. He had nothing to do with it."

Police and emergency personnel filtered into the room with an old-looking stretcher. They would start snapping photographs of the crime scene, and asking questions Bruce couldn't answer.

Maybe J'onn heard him, because he collapsed with a loud moan.

* * *

Clark was closest when J'onn fell, and sped over to keep him from cracking his head on the floor. Tried speeding. Come to think of it, he wasn't feeling so good, either. 

"J'onn," he said through clenched teeth. "What's wrong?"

"Can't feel. Nothing there." He moaned softly, his arm weakly rubbing his head.

Clark switched to x-ray vision to check for any internal injuries. Tried to switch.

"Powers," he whispered, and J'onn nodded.

"What's wrong with him?" asked the fat cop.

"Nervous collapse," said Diana, leaning down to help. "Give him some air!"

Bruce's little red-haired date glanced at him. "Guess he's upset the gravy train just left the station, huh?"

"What's that supposed to mean?" asked John. The emergency folks had tried pushing him aside to look at Vixen, but he was having nothing to do with that plan.

The redhead snorted. "Everybody knows Jones has been skimming from Vix's accounts."

"Do tell," said the skinny cop, opening a pad of paper.

"We have to get out of here and regroup," Clark said to Diana quietly. "Check to see if you still have your powers."

"Now?"

He nodded. She sighed, then reached down and placed her hand on the floor, squeezing the floor tiles by her feet. Normally, Diana could dent them easily. Nothing. Her eyes widened.

"But as you can see," Bruce said loudly, "there's really nothing more I can tell you without _talking to my attorney first_."

"That's right," said Clark, picking up on the plan. "I think I really should consult my lawyer, too."

"I don't speak to lawyers," Diana whispered.

"You do now," Clark chided.

"I, too, must see my lawyer before remarking further on this matter," she said, glaring at him.

"In fact," Bruce said, "I think I can safely speak for everyone in this room when I say, you'll be talking to half the legal professionals in the city by tomorrow."

"You don't get to lawyer up now, Wayne," snarled the fat cop. "No weasling out. That isn't another no-name hooker dead over there, that's the biggest star in Los Diablos!"

"You don't think I know that?" Bruce asked calmly, which was a good trick because Clark was positive Bruce actually had no more idea of what the cop meant than Clark did.

"The press will be all over this. Bottom-feeders like Kent here are just the start."

Clark narrowed his eyes.

Bruce waved his hand idly. "Let them come. In the meantime, do what you have to and then get out of my house."

"Yeah!" said the redhead.

The fat cop snorted at her. "Your daddy know where you are tonight, sweetheart?"

"He knows."

The skinny cop closed his pad of paper and looked around. "Hey, Baker!" A deputy with a camera came over.

"Yeah?"

"Make sure you get pictures of everyone in the crowd, capiche?"

"Sure thing."

He nodded towards Shayera. "Start with the stool pigeon."

Clark saw Shayera stiffen and frown just before Baker snapped a photo. She hadn't said anything since this craziness had started, which was probably her best option. He thought to himself that things had worked out well for her, considering.

"Barbara," Bruce said, scraping her off his arm again. "Please see to our guests. I'd like to have a word with the people here."

"Getting your stories straight?" asked the fat cop.

"Detective, if you're going to arrest us, do so. If not, get your work done and get out of my house." He nodded to the rest of them. "If you'll join me in the study."

Diana and Clark helped J'onn slowly to his feet. John stayed beside Vixen's still form. "No."

"You can't help her here," Shayera said in a strained voice. Clark focused on her and realized what was wrong.

"If they take her away, I might not be able to find her again."

Bruce said, "We'll come back before they take her away. I promise."

Alfred had already opened the study for them and had even lit a small fire in the grate to dispel the damp cold. As soon as the doors were shut, Bruce said, "Joker and Harley. They were in the crowd. And I know they're dead."

Clark inhaled sharply. Bruce had only told him the sketchiest details of what had happened when they'd found Tim. He didn't doubt Bruce's words.

"But that's great!" said Wally cheerfully. "This is all some dream or illusion, and we just have to figure out how to get out of it.

Bruce walked to a bookshelf and picked out a volume. He opened it, skimmed it, and put it back. "Not a dream."

"You're sure?" asked Diana.

"I'm sure."

Clark touched J'onn's shoulder. "How are you?"

"Everything is strange. I can't sense any of you, nor can I sense anyone or anything else." He closed his eyes. "I can't change my shape."

"I can't speed," Wally said.

Diana shrugged. "My powers are gone as well." Clark nodded.

John looked down at his right hand, which was bare as expected. On his left hand was a wide gold band.

"Shayera?"

For the first time, the others noticed what Clark had realized earlier. "I'm fine," she said in a stilted voice that indicated she was no such thing. Without the wings, she looked smaller. Whoever had done this to them had gone to a lot of trouble to make everyone appear human. Something to keep in mind.

Bruce sighed. "All right. Assets. First, we know who we are, and we know we're here together. Second, no one else has caught on to the switch. Third, our names are the same, and we seem to be in counterpart roles to our real-world identities."

"Fourth, you've got me."

Clark turned. Zatanna stood by the door.

"I'm sorry," said Bruce. "This is a closed meeting."

Zatanna smiled. "And I'm glad. It would have been pretty awkward if I'd tried contacting you in front of other people. Batman."

Bruce glared at her, but Clark saw the relief he had almost perfectly disguised.

"Dr. Fate and I are trying to figure out how to get you out of here."

"Where is 'here'?" Shayera asked.

"The seven of you have been trapped in a magical artifact, a book that was supposed to be delivered to me. It's quasi-dimensional, so Fate opened a walk-through for me, though it won't work for you. Sorry. We've quarantined the book, and we're looking for spells to extract you. Just sit tight and don't get hurt."

"Why not?" asked Wally. "This isn't real. You just said."

"No, I said you're trapped in a magical artifact. It's real. This particular spell makes its reality out of what's in the minds of the people it sucks in."

"How do we get out?" Diana asked.

"If we can reverse-engineer the spell, we pull you out from the story. If we can't, you're stuck here until you play out the plot. We're going to try for the first option. But again, don't get hurt. We'll be pulling you out from wherever you are in the plot. If you've lost an arm or an eye when we get you out, it will become a part of your permanent reality."

John asked, "What about if you're killed?"

Zatanna frowned. "Don't get killed."

Bruce said, "I need you to check something. Locate Vixen. Use her comm, use anything. Find her and make sure of her location. Then locate all other active and reserve League members."

"Why?"

"Just do it."

She rolled her eyes at him. "Hold on." She vanished in a pink-purple flash. Moments later, she reappeared. "Okay, we can locate everyone but Vixen. Tell me this isn't bad."

Wally placed a hand on John's shoulder as Bruce said, "It's bad."

Zatanna looked at John, and she didn't ask. "All right, plan B. If you finish the plot, you _should_ all be reset to the beginning, including Vixen."

"'Should?'" said John.

"How sure are you on that?" Wally asked.

"Not very. I'm sorry," she said to John. "That's why I was having the book delivered to me, so I could examine it safely. Fate and I will tinker with the spell, see if we can get a confirmation on that."

Shayera said, "Just tell us what we have to do."

"Well, you're in a mystery novel. Find the clues and solve the mystery. Like Bruce said, you'll have roles somewhat like your real life counterparts. One of your characters is probably a detective. That'll be the person who has to figure it out."

Diana asked, "And if we don't?"

Zatanna tapped her fingers against her leg. "Best case, you all stay here for the rest of your lives. Worst case, when the story ends, so do you. I don't know all the terms of the spell yet, but the research I've got on it so far says it's a puzzle trap. Figure out the puzzle. Fate and I will be on our end trying to find another way out just in case." She vanished again, this time for good.

"Everyone turn out your pockets," Bruce said. "Look for identification. The more we know about who we're supposed to be, the better a chance we'll have of solving this."

Neither of the women had pockets, but Clark found a driver's license and a press pass in his jacket. Same name, bad picture but it was definitely him. Also a gold-trimmed invitation to a gala event, hosted by Bruce Wayne in honor of Mari Macabe. With the invitation, a terse handwritten note: "Kent. After tonight, we have nothing more to say to each other. M." Clark had seen Vixen's handwriting on dozens of reports; if this wasn't from her, someone had gone through a great deal of effort to mimic her style. But what did it mean?

_Bottom-feeder._ The name stung, more than he wanted to think about right now. What kind of man was he in this crazy world?

* * *

Wally dug through his pockets. Candy wrappers, keys, a pencil stub with a broken lead, a grubby party invitation, and a business card.

**Wally West, Private Investigator**

"I'm the detective!" he announced cheerfully. This was great! The P.I. always got the best part, always got the most action, always got the girl. Score!

Bats grabbed the card from his hand and examined it closely. With a tightly-controlled expression, he handed it back and gave a sharp nod.

"We're doomed," said Shayera.

Wally resisted the urge to stick out his tongue at her. "At least I don't have to lie about being a detective."

Shayera balled up her hands into fists, right as J'onn's arm shot out between the two of them. "Enough."

"We need to figure out who killed Mari," John said. His voice was level as he said it, making Wally wonder how much he was holding back, and also making him feel guilty for thinking he was going to enjoy this. He met Shayera's eyes, and they both mumbled what was probably an apology.

"Bruce," Diana said. "You're the World's Greatest Detective. Where do we start?"

"Narrow down the list of suspects. Find out who had a motive. Trace the weapon. Eliminate everyone who couldn't have killed her. I'd prefer we all stay together, but we won't find anything out that way. Go home tonight. Find out who you are, or at least who you're supposed to be. It'd be helpful if we could at least find alibis for everyone in this room."

"But none of us killed her," said Shayera. _Little too defensive there,_ Wally thought.

"We don't know that. I don't know that _I_ didn't kill her. Find out. Eliminate yourselves as suspects tonight, and tomorrow we'll see who's left."

Just then, Alfred opened the door to the study. "Sir, I'm afraid the police are most insistent that you rejoin their company." He held the door as they filed out.

Bruce was last to leave. Wally heard him tell Alfred, "My friends are in shock. I'd like you to make sure they're seen home safely."

"Of course, sir."

Wally caught up with John. "Are you gonna be okay, man?"

"Yeah." But his eyes were focused on the sheet-covered form still on the floor. The police had cordoned off the area, were examining the gun for prints, but had left Vixen alone for now.

"It's not her, John."

"It _is_ her. And you're the one who has to save her." John turned and stared hard at Wally. Wally'd always thought his friend was scary when he did the pissed-off-glowing-green-eyes thing, but this was completely different. GL wasn't yelling at him like a numbskull rookie; he was pleading with him as a friend.

"I will. _We_ will. Trust me."

He put a friendly hand on GL's shoulder, and finally noticed what his brain had told him and forgotten already: he was wearing gloves. They all were, from the slinky gloves that matched the girls' dresses, to the pristine white gloves on Bats' butler. So when the cop dusting for prints stood up and told his superior in a stage whisper that there weren't any fingerprints on the gun, Wally just nodded, knowing this was going to be a little harder than he'd thought.

* * *

To be continued

* * *


	3. Chapter 2

* * *

Chapter Two

* * *

Clark tried to strike up a conversation with his driver, who bore an uncanny resemblance to Bibbo Bibbowski. Bibbo just shrugged him off, leaving Clark to sit uncomfortably in the back of the car watching the dark, rainy road go by.

This wasn't the first time Clark had been without his powers. Red suns, kryptonite, occasional freak magical encounters, these had always taken from him, and then given back. Still he was more worried than he let on to the others. He relied on his powers in both lives. To be stranded somewhere without them made him feel human, but also just a little bit terrified.

When the car pulled up to a bulky, tall building in the middle of the city, Clark stared. "This is where I live?"

"Mr. Wayne said to bring you here," said Bibbo, grouchily. He didn't get out of the car to open Clark's door.

"Thanks," Clark said, and left him sitting there. Bruce would have already paid him.

The front door was locked, but one of the keys on Clark's ring eventually opened it. Chilly and wet, Clark walked into the darkened lobby. He read the signs on the wall until he spied _The Daily Devil_, the same name as was on his press ID. Second floor.

He took the stairs.

No one was there. As it was gone past midnight, Clark wasn't surprised. He found a cot in the back room that looked well-used. He needed to prowl around the office and try to discover any clues he could. But suddenly he was very tired. _Maybe just a quick break. I can rest my eyes._

"KENT!"

Clark's head shot up at Perry's shout. "Yes, Chief?" he asked on autopilot, scrambling to his feet. How long had he been out?

"Where's my exclusive? Did you get pictures? Lane, get your butt over here!" Perry White emerged from his office like a short, plump volcano god, clouded over with his own personal climate of cigar smoke and belligerence.

Pictures? "Sorry, Perry."

Perry cursed a blue streak, and again the godlike air was magnified as his intonation brought forth Jimmy from the elevator.

"I got copies of the police photos, Chief!" Jimmy grinned. "Paid the guy twenty bucks for 'em."

"Good job, Olsen," said Perry, before rounding on Clark again. "_That's_ the kind of initiative I want around here! Lane!"

"Right here, Chief," said Lois. Clark gaped. Aside from their clothes, the other familiar faces he'd seen still looked more or less the same, but Lois had undergone a striking shift. Gone was her long hair, replaced with a short flip, and gone too was something on her face, though Clark couldn't place it. She looked tired, and too made-up. He thought it could have been from the early hour --- dawn hadn't yet come --- but he'd seen her on too many all-night stakeouts to really believe that.

"Lane, help Kent write up the story."

"What story?" asked Clark, before he remembered. "Oh."

Perry glared at him. "Listen, you want to booze and schmooze with the hoity-toity scum, that's your business. But when my, ha, 'star reporter' is right there when the most famous actress in Los Diablos gets shot, I damn well want my exclusive on page one! So tell Lane what you remember, and go into the back and sleep it off."

Perry stomped back to his office and slammed the door. Moments later, Clark heard him yelling on the phone to get warm bodies to the presses so they could get the morning edition out early.

Lois sighed and sat down at her typewriter. Without even speaking to Clark, she started typing. Just over her shoulder, he could read: "The Vixen Murdered! One Reporter's Harrowing Experience! Last night, at a gala ball hosted by wealthy producer Bruce Wayne, Mari 'The Vixen' Macabe was brutally gunned down ... "

Jimmy grinned at Clark in a predatory way. "Right there with the body, and you didn't get a photo? You're slipping, Kent." As he walked by, Jimmy placed a possessive hand on Lois' neck. Clark watched her cringe as she kept typing.

As soon as he was gone, she said, "You can chime in any time you want, Kent."

"Hm?"

"The story? Which you were there for? What was she wearing? Did you see anything? Did her husband do it?"

"What? No." His mind raced back. "Her dress was cream-colored. Sequins. Shoes to match." He picked up the picture Jimmy had left on the desk. It wasn't good quality, and what he could see didn't do Vixen justice. She had sparkled, he remembered now, even in death.

Someone had killed her, right in front of him, in front of all of them, and he had no idea who or why. She wasn't what he'd call a friend, but he'd liked her. John _was_ his friend, and John loved her, or did a good enough impression to dispel the doubts Clark had first entertained. "Her husband didn't kill her."

"Fine," Lois said, still typing. "Did his mistress do it?"

Clark blinked.

* * *

The driver, who looked a little too much like the photos she'd seen of Cyrus Gold to make her at all happy, deposited her in front of a bungalow atop a palm-dotted ridge overlooking the ocean. "Thank you," she said, but he only grunted and drove off.

Shayera wasn't going to think about her wings. She'd nearly twisted her head off to check; the skin on her back was smooth, if just as muscular as she'd always been. Despite the complete shift in her center of gravity and the tight heels, she found she could walk easily. Magic, and she wasn't anywhere near her usual tool for dealing with it.

So she wouldn't think about her wings, not for now.

She found a key in the frilly purse Alfred had claimed was hers, and let herself inside.

The electric lights flickered unsteadily, but provided enough light to see. The house was small; she'd use the word 'cozy' but already she felt her breath quicken a little at the closeness. Small kitchen with --- yes! --- an icebox filled with decent beer and what looked to her hopeful eye like good cuts of raw fish. She opened a bottle and had a look around 'her' place.

This did not take long. The kitchen opened onto a sitting room with a small couch, a radio, and a fireplace too clean to have been used even once. Off the sitting room was a bedroom and bathroom. Tub, no shower. She growled. The bedroom was a win, with large windows and a high ceiling. Also an unmade bed, but that wasn't unusual for anyone who was her.

There were clothes piled on the floor, and as she poked through them, she noticed that many of them were male. She brought a shirt to her nose and breathed in, but although she could typically identify anyone she'd ever known by scent alone at fifty paces, she barely even smelled laundry soap.

During her five year mission, her research had turned up all manner of things about Earth and its culture. A child's story came back to her now, with a little blonde girl and bears, as she stood and stared at her own disheveled bed.

* * *

The back seat of the car was roomier than the cars Wally was used to, and there was more leg room, which was also a novelty. The driver was a nervous-looking little fellow who wore glasses.

As they turned a corner, through the raindrop-spattered window, Wally saw a movie marquee, its lights dimmed now that the hour was so late. The theater was playing a film he'd never heard of yet sounded vaguely familiar all the same: KISS ME TWICE BEFORE LEAVING.

On the lobby card under glass on the wall of the movie theater a beautiful face stared back at him as the car rolled passed, the gracefully pointed chin, full mouth, large eyes. She stared wistfully off into the distance, a scarf about her neck. The chiseled features of the film's leather-jacket clad hero was smaller than her image. COMING SOON was emblazoned across the bottom of the poster; the film apparently had something to do with airplanes, palm trees, and a bottle of gin. He read the title and the names of the leads, although he already knew what one of them would be. ON THE WINGS OF FALLEN ANGELS, starring Mari Macabe and Matt Hagen.

Wally sat back into the deep seat. Here, she was dead, and she'd stay dead unless he could solve this. _You're the one who has to save her._

This was why he'd gone into forensics, long before the accident changed his body and gave him super-speed. To save people. He'd picked forensics and not patrol work because guns weren't for him. He doubted he could shoot someone. But he could analyze a hair under a microscope or examine a millimeter-sized piece of fingernail and save an innocent person from going to jail or stop a killer from taking another life.

"H-hey, mister," the driver stuttered, and Wally realized the car had come to a stop. "Y-your stop."

"Thanks, buddy." Wally opened the door, which was heavy and creaked a bit, and stepped out into the misting rain.

The car drove away, its tires making a soft shushing sound as they rolled through a puddle. Wally darted out of the way of the drops. He stood in front of a small stucco apartment building with a scalloped roof. Reaching into his coat, Wally pulled out the keys. One he guessed was for his office and one for his apartment.

He made his way inside. The entry foyer was tiled, and his footsteps sounded loudly in the quiet. According to the mailboxes, W. West lived in apartment 22B. There was no elevator but it was an easy walk up for him, even without his super speed.

When he unlocked the door and tried to open it, it caught on something. Wally shoved his way in and fumbled for the light-switch, which turned out to be a push-button thing.

The place was a mess. The door had caught on a half-empty takeout food wrapper. There were newspapers, files, and empty bottles of booze on the coffee table, couch, end table, and on the floor.

He found a note attached to the refrigerator with a magnet: _Dear Mr. West: You have until Friday to come up with the rest of the rent or you're out of here. And clean up this mess! Mrs. Sawyer_ Wally crumpled up the note and tossed it into the metal trash can.

Then he wandered into the equally messy bedroom, tossed his damp raincoat over a chair and, with great relief, got out of the awful tuxedo. The toothpaste he found in the bathroom tasted weird, too chalky and not sweet enough, and the bristles of the toothbrush were harsh.

Wearing only his boxers, Wally flopped back onto the bed, which was a tumble of covers and shirts and dirty socks. He kicked a few of the clothes onto the floor, then lay on his back staring at the shadow of the window panes the streetlights cast onto the ceiling.

Apparently, this P.I. character was a slob. Wally was pretty messy himself, but he wasn't this bad. He put his hands over his face, suddenly tireder than he could remember being in a long time. Better get to sleep.

In the morning he'd get to his office. Then, he'd find a way to save Mari.

No, they all would.

* * *

With the last guests shushed out the door, Bruce did a final walk around what appeared to be his home. The layout was different from Wayne Manor, but not from what he was used to in other ostentatious mansions. Alfred watched him curiously as he walked from room to room; Bruce made mental notes and tried to think back clearly to the moment they'd arrived.

It had been dark. The lights had been off, though briefly. A visit to the basement showed Bruce an antique electrical system expensively if inexpertly wired. It was a wonder the house didn't simply burn down.

There would be no Batcave. He didn't try searching.

So. Dark. And Bruce had been standing _here_, and Mari's body had been _there_, on the other side of the police cordon, still guarded by a bored man who looked like the alternate Green Lantern Bruce had met in the future.

Bruce paced the barrier. Mari was there, and the gun was found _here_, about ten feet away, dropped or thrown. In his perfect memory, the pistol slowly spun and stopped.

From the wound she'd suffered, she'd been shot from the front. He hadn't been able to tell if it had been from an upward angle.

Bruce closed his eyes.

Blood, too much blood. Dead center of her heart, a perfect shot. The low cut of her dress meant the bullet had straight access. Call it from above. He opened his eyes, and saw a large mezzanine overlooking the floor. Fifty people at least could have been standing there. If he was wrong, and it was a straight shot, another fifty could have been standing below.

Joker.

His memory wouldn't cooperate, told him Joker and Harley had been on the other side of the room. The angle was completely wrong. But he wanted to believe it anyway.

"Can I help you?" Jordan asked him finally.

"No," said Bruce. "I'm just thinking."

_I was standing over here. She was facing away from me. I couldn't have killed her._

He hadn't suspected himself, not really, but it was comforting to know that he was looking for a murderer who _wasn't_ sharing a body with him.

"Thank you, officer," he said, and went up to find his bedroom.

Barbara beat him there.

"I was wonderin' when you were comin' up," she said. Her bare shoulders peeked out from under the spill of her hair, and only the fine red satin of the sheets covered the rest of her.

Bruce tried not to stammer, and tried not to look without looking like he was trying not to look. This was akin to giving himself whiplash while standing still.

"Barbara."

"Is there a _reason_ you haven't called me 'Babs' all night, Bruce? 'Cause it's gettin' on my nerves."

"No. Babs. It's been a stressful night." He waved his hand. "Maybe you should ... "

She raised a cool eyebrow at him. "I should what?" Her voice was different, just for a moment, and Bruce had a sudden firm conviction that the bubble-head act was exactly that, though for whose benefit she maintained it was anyone's guess.

"I need to be alone right now," he said, watching her face.

"Do you?" Flat. Completely flat.

"The shock," said Bruce. "There was ... so much blood." He didn't want to let out his inner trauma patient, the one that screamed inside his head whenever he heard a gunshot. Too easy for him to see every gun-related death as an echo, to end up a sobbing child after every car backfire. But he could mimic the pain, almost without feeling it.

"Did you kill her?"

"What?" This time the shock was real. He'd eliminated himself as a suspect simply as a matter of course.

Barbara shrugged. "I didn't. I thought maybe you did."

"Why would I?"

"Maybe because that big announcement of hers wasn't such a good thing for you. Maybe because she was calling it quits between the two of you. Don't ask me."

_Quits?_

"I didn't kill her," said Bruce with conviction.

"Then that's settled." She leaned in for a kiss, and before Bruce had processed this, he'd kissed her back.

He broke away. "Barbara. I can't. Not tonight." Or ever. He was aware of the real Barbara's crush on him, had dealt with it as best he could and still maintain cohesion in their team. She was Jim Gordon's little girl, and Dick's old girlfriend, and also ...

And also completely naked under the sheet just as he'd thought. The warmth from her body, escaping from the covers, enveloped him. His hands roamed enough to grab the sheet and pull it back over her demurely before his brain stopped working and got him into worse trouble.

"What's gotten into you? You're always ready for a little tumble after a party."

"A woman died at this one."

"And you'll notice I ain't askin' if you were sleepin' with her!" Her voice had gone shrill. That helped, even if her words didn't. "I get you at night. Those other floozies, they can have you whenever. But you're mine at night! Macabe's dead. If you were stepping out with her, that's your business and I ain't askin'. But now it's nighttime, and you're with me, not some little starlet, and not the memory of one, either."

"I'm not. I wasn't." _I hope._

"Fine. Whatever. Good." She looked away, the color high in her cheeks making her blotchy. He wasn't sure if she believed him.

He tried a new tactic. "You said you didn't kill her. I know I didn't. Who do you think did?"

Barbara rubbed her face. "Like I'd know."

"Who had a reason for wanting her dead?"

"You're puttin' me on, right?"

"Pretend I'm stupid."

"I ain't pretendin', Brucie."

He hid his sigh. "All right, you _know_ I'm stupid. Tell me everybody you know who might want Mari Macabe dead."

"Do I have to?"

"No. But that's what I'm going to be doing tonight, and I'd like your ... help."

She eyed him suspiciously. "Why?"

He smiled charmingly. "Because you're a beautiful, intelligent woman."

She rolled her eyes at him. "You're drunk." But she told him anyway.

* * *

The car took nearly half an hour to arrive at its destination. J'onn tried again and again to make contact with anyone, reach out his mind past the prison of his own form. Nothing.

He remembered this.

Trapped inside his mind, trapped inside one shape, locked in a room, strapped to a machine.

J'onn rolled down the window and attempted to breathe. The driver, who could have been the twin brother to J. Allen Carter, glanced at him in the rearview mirror but said nothing as J'onn fought himself not to claw his way out of the car.

At last, the vehicle stopped and he could open the door like a sane person. The driver didn't speak to him, merely drove off into the night.

The house loomed in the darkness. A light glowed in a downstairs window. He found a key in his pocket and unlocked the door.

His home was sumptuously decorated, if he was any judge. Lush furnishings, deep hangings over the windows, heavy wooden tables and sideboards. The art on the walls was ...

Ah.

He turned, hearing her footsteps on the stairs.

"I was wondering when you were coming home," Ming said. She wore a thick red robe, and her eyes were lined with sleep.

"The party ran late," he said. _Can you hear me? Please. Hear me._

She tilted her head up to him, but there was no answering response from her mind. He took her hand, surprising her, and asked, "Have you noticed anything strange tonight?"

She pulled her hand back. "No. Why?"

Another simulation. He'd known, but he'd hoped anyway.

"No reason." Then he remembered. "Mari Macabe was murdered tonight."

"Was she?" Ming shivered, looking around the house as if someone might hear her. "Did you kill her?"

He recoiled. "No!" But Batman had insisted they discover their innocence, hadn't he? "Why would you think I did?"

Ming shrugged. "Maybe she found you out. Did she make her big announcement?"

He shook his head. Perhaps she had; he would have to ask someone who'd been there.

"Then don't worry about her. Tomorrow, burn the books. Tonight, come to bed."

He pulled back. She stared at him. "What is it?"

"Nothing."

"Then do your 'nothing' later."

"I ... I'm going to stay up for a while. You go to bed."

Ming let out a little sigh. "Fine." Without another word, she went back upstairs.

He watched her go. True, she looked and sounded exactly like his wife. But she was no more real than a soap bubble reflection, and the thought of crawling into a bed next to her unnerved him.

Books. And Barbara Gordon had mentioned that he "skimmed" from Vixen's accounts. With a little searching, he found an office and quietly began to examine the documents there. Numbers in rows and columns, ticked up neatly but annotated in a code he didn't understand. Some entries were random strings of letters that might be directions, abbreviations, or initials.

He eventually fell asleep at the desk, a page filled with numbers still clutched in one hand.

* * *

This was Mari's house. John had no doubts, not from the moment the car pulled up the long, curved driveway. The mansion was enormous, overlooking a broad expanse of the city below on one side, the sea crashing unseen but still loud in the back.

The driver, the chauffeur, _John's_ chauffeur, opened the door for him. John tried not to gape at what should have been his own home.

"I just wanted to extend my condolences, sir," the driver had said when John had gotten into the unfamiliar car. Now slippered and berobed figures emerged from the house, and while his eye wasn't as used to this as Bruce's probably was, he realized they were the staff. His staff.

A few of the women were crying.

He hadn't cried. He wasn't going to cry. Bruce had said this wasn't real. Zatanna had confirmed it. Mari wasn't dead, not permanently dead at least, and that was the one thought he clung to during their hasty meeting and the long ride home. They'd figure out this puzzle, and get out of this stupid book, and Mari would be fine. They'd laugh about this one of these days, maybe even tell the story to their kids.

Another thought struck him, aside from the usual twinge when he remembered his _other_ child. _Please God, don't let us have kids in this storybook._ Clark's eyes still grew shadowed when Mongul's name came up in conversation, and John already had enough to digest on that particular plate.

As his eyes adjusted to the odd, cloudy moonlight, John recognized the faces of his staff. Rex Mason had "butler" written all over his somber face, and Sapphire was either a maid or a cook. He recognized old girlfriends, a distant cousin, and now that he got a good look at the chauffeur's face, he felt like an idiot for not recognizing Guy right off.

"Please say it's not true, sir," said his cousin Sue through puffy eyes.

John cleared his throat. "I think we'll all be better for a good night's sleep," he managed to say, and that was enough for Susie to burst into tears on Katma's shoulder. Kat patted her hair as she glared daggers at John.

"You could at least pretend to care," she snapped. No "sir," he noticed.

"I'm not ready to talk about this," he told her, which was true. And if Kat was as much of an illusion as the rest of them, it wasn't as though she'd believe him anyway. "Go inside, all of you. Go back to bed. We'll figure out everything in the morning."

There were mutters as the staff migrated back in through the doors, although John caught a distinct: " ... surprised he even came home tonight ... " in Kat's voice, the rest lost in the low mumbling and sniffling. Guy got back into the car and drove it off towards a garage which John later found out was behind the house and to the side.

Despite his instruction, Mace stayed behind to get John's jacket. "Your nightclothes are laid out in your room, sir," he said. John stared in his friend's face for any trace of real recognition, any line of fine irony at the odd situation. Nothing.

"Um, thanks."

"Would you like me to fix you a drink?"

"No. Just go." He placed a hand to his own forehead, feigning a headache. "I'll go upstairs in a few minutes."

"Sir, on behalf of the staff, I just wanted to tell you how sorry I am."

"Me too," John said, and waited for Mace to leave.

Then he let out his breath. Were the other six not right there with him in the study back at Bruce's, he'd have thought he was cracking up. _Stay focused,_ he told himself. He wasn't doing Mari any favors by letting this place get to him. First, do a little recon, check out the lay of the land. Then, find out whatever he could. Look through paperwork. Ask as many questions as he could without sounding like a fool. Find out why Katma was so angry with him, because his gut told him that was going to be important.

_Don't let Mari down, Stewart. She's only got Hotshot, and if you rely on him, she's dead and you know it._

"Sir?" came the voice from the top of the stairs, and John knew he'd spoken aloud. Fantastic. He wondered if he would get extra Crazy Points for talking to himself.

"Never mind," he said loudly.

Then he removed his shoes to poke around his own home as quietly as he could.

The place was huge. If he'd had even a lingering doubt that this was Mari's house, those were set to rest as soon as he got a good look at the décor. Everything was very much to her tastes, from the lace curtains edging the tall windows in the dining room, to the crystal goblets on display, and from the false columns at the stairway to the fine tile on the floor. Art pieces which he knew weren't prints lined the parlor, and while he wasn't going to be able to pick out a Picasso from a Matisse, he was certain the paintings would be seriously expensive.

Another room, God only knew what it was called, and John saw Mari everywhere. Her face smiled at him, or looked away dramatically, from dozens of movie posters and still photos on the walls or in frames on low tables. The surfaces that weren't covered in pictures were mirrored, including the ceiling. Had Mari stood in this room, she would have seen herself everywhere she looked.

It was unnerving, and as soon as John had taken enough of a glance to see what he needed, he hurried out.

Enormous kitchen, and here at least he could see what was probably his own influence in the icebox: chilled beer and what looked like a quick-frozen array of things he liked to eat.

Still another room appeared to be his den, filled with worn but comfortable leather chairs, books in shelves up to the ceiling, antique guns, and a faint aroma of tobacco. Either his counterpart smoked, or he had friends over often who did.

She kept him well.

From this room, he could see the ocean just through a sparse covering of palm trees lining a private beach. The moon was out from behind her cloud again, and bathed the world in an eerie glow. In the distance, as the seaside curved out and away farther north, he could just make out a light in another house. He wasn't the only one up this late. Someone else out there was up at who knew what past midnight, for his or her own reasons that had nothing to do with the pain John wasn't letting himself think about in his own heart, and that's what finally brought it home to him.

This _was_ real. Maybe not permanent, but in the terms of his existence, right now, this was as close to real as he could get.

In this reality, Mari was quite definitely dead.

And now, he let himself feel it.

* * *

When she arrived at the apartment, Diana noticed three things right off the bat. The third thing she noticed was the smell. It wasn't musty, not quite. More like the odor of things forgotten and left to moulder quietly with no one to care, of cheap wood and cheaper wallpaper, and clothes too old and stained to ever launder properly.

The second thing she noticed was how very small it was. The kitchen was a sink, a hotplate, and a table barely big enough to hold the pile of letters abandoned on the top and the glass of water with the handful of flowers stuck hopefully in it. Two chairs crammed under the table, as if shoving the thing further in the corner. An overflowing wardrobe took up part of one wall. The rest of the room was filled by the two small beds.

Audrey was asleep on one of them.

Diana suspected that coming in from the night at two a.m. to waken someone in order to ask if she was her lover or just her roommate was probably too much, even for this skewed reality. In the harsh light coming in from the streetlamps outside through the thin paper blinds, Diana dug through the wardrobe until she found a nightgown that looked like it might fit, and dressed for bed.

As she pulled the covers over herself, Audrey stirred. "How was the party, darling?"

"Not as good as it could have been."

"Did your friend tell her secret?"

Secret? "I don't think so."

"Mmm." Audrey sounded like she was drifting off again.

"Audrey?"

"Mmhm?"

"Did you know Mari Macabe?"

"She's your friend, not mine." The voice was tired, but Diana heard some of the familiar haughtiness in it. Some things remained true.

"She's dead."

"Oh." From the sounds, Audrey was now wide awake in the small bed across from her. In what wasn't remotely a casual voice, she asked, "Was it you?"

Honesty bade her admit that she didn't know. Sanity reminded her this wasn't really Audrey and that the truth wasn't at all clear no matter where she looked. "No. I don't know who did it."

"But it wasn't you," Audrey said again, continuing to explore the option. "I wouldn't tell the police, even if you did. Silly men, full of themselves. It'd be all right if you told me."

"I didn't." _But now I know you think I did._

"That's fine," said Audrey, and she rolled over and went to sleep.

Diana had no such option, not tonight, and still she found her eyes slipping shut. She'd ask Audrey more in the morning.

* * *

Clark woke suddenly. He'd lain back down on the cot in the back room of the press office for a few minutes, but his internal clock told him he'd been out for at least an hour. He grabbed his glasses and jammed them back on his face, realizing belatedly that in this magical world, he wasn't Superman and didn't have to worry about protecting his secret identity. Not that one, anyway.

Out in the office, Lois was reading the article. Clark peered over her shoulder. It was a bit fanciful and speculative, but otherwise a solid piece of writing. He reread the title and noticed his own name in the byline. "Lois, you forgot to put your name on it."

"Funny, Kent." She didn't bother looking at him. "I'll run this down to typesetting if you don't have any corrections."

"No. It's fine," he said, as she got up suddenly and walked away.

He stifled the urge to ask her what her problem was. This wasn't the time. Instead, as soon as Lois was gone, he took the opportunity to poke around the office. Old papers were preserved behind glass, and Clark read headline after headline with his name attached: Senator Sex Scandal Exposed; Mayor Hill Money Laundering; Actor Found Slain in Home, Manager Chief Suspect. He skimmed each article, noting flourishes and turns of phrase that he recognized as Lois' style rather than his, but her name wasn't attached to any of them. He gave a little start when he saw that all the papers were from the mid to late forties, but then, given what everyone was wearing, maybe he shouldn't have been surprised.

More investigation turned up little, until he found the locked cabinet in the back. Clark checked his keyring, trying keys until he found one that turned the tumblers.

The files inside were in plain brown folders, each marked with a name. All of the names were familiar, which wasn't surprising. This place, this office, would be built from Clark's own mind and memories.

He located a file with Vixen's real name and opened it.

His eyes went wide, and then he closed the folder as quickly as he could, his face burning bright red. Then, because he wanted to confirm what he'd seen, he looked again. He put the folder on his desk under his jacket before Lois returned.

* * *

To Be Continued... 


	4. Chapter 3

Thanks to Amilyn for her beta on this work. Special thanks also to XFfan2000 and BillA1 for editing above and beyond the call of duty on the final draft. All mistakes that may still be found herein are ours alone.

* * *

Chapter Three

* * *

In her dream, Shayera was arguing with her mother. Since she had no actual memories of her mother, she was facing a morphing, angry form made up of half the women she'd ever known, and all of them were scolding her. Her multi-mother slammed her fist into a wall again and again to show her frustration, and Shayera wanted her to stop the pounding. 

The pounding.

The pounding was on a door, and she sat up in bed to hear the thumps. "I'm coming," she said, and she was halfway to her bedroom door when she remembered where she was and that her wings were gone. She staggered the rest of the way out to the door in the kitchen and fumbled with the lock until she could slide the bolt.

Carter Hall stood on her doorstep, arm raised to knock more.

"Shayera!" He picked her up and hugged her before she could do or say anything. "I just heard the news. Are you all right?"

"Am I ... Yes. I'm fine." The events of the night before sorted themselves in her mind. Meeting. Mari dead on the floor. Everything out of whack and unreal but real enough. "It was terrible, what happened to her," she said, because she knew she ought to.

Carter nodded. "I was sure they'd arrest you just for the look of the thing."

"No evidence," she said, walking back into her living room and sitting down on the small couch. Carter joined her without asking, pulling her hand into his and rubbing it absently.

She wondered if the clothes on the floor were his.

"Like that will stop them for long. Someone will pay for a cover-up. You'll see. I just don't want you to be the patsy when it all goes down."

"Neither do I."

"Has _he_ said anything to you yet about it?" Something about the emphasis on "he" bothered her, and she pulled her hand back.

"I don't know what you mean."

Carter let out a disgusted breath. "No games, Shayera. We promised each other that."

"No," she said. "No games. I'm just very flustered. Mari's gone."

"Which leaves your boyfriend with a big inheritance and no one to share it with."

She was confused momentarily, and then she wasn't confused and found herself wishing she still was. "You mean John."

"I figure he'll wait until after the funeral at least to move you into the big house. Unless the cops think he was the one who killed her."

"He didn't." John wouldn't have killed Mari. He cared for her too much; Shayera wouldn't let herself think the word "love" because it hurt every time she tried.

Carter's expression wasn't as sure. "Look, he wouldn't be the first guy to decide he didn't want to risk losing everything in a divorce. And if that rumor about her and Wayne was true, well, a man does crazy things when he thinks his woman is cheating on him."

Shayera tried to picture Mari with Bruce. Part of her could see it working: wealthy jet-setters by day, vigilantes by night. But aside from whatever was up with Bruce and Diana these days, she knew Mari was happy with John and he with her. And there was that hurt all over again.

Carter's tone changed. "He doesn't know about us, right?"

"I'm not even sure what I know about us."

He chuckled, and his voice was low. "Then maybe I should remind you." He leaned in for a kiss, which he placed against her neck.

Now that could be interesting. This wasn't her Carter. This was a Carter out of her head. Bonus: this Carter wasn't convinced he was the reincarnation of an Egyptian king destined to be her lover, nor was he possessed by a dark half that had tried to kill her friends. She'd liked the real Carter before she'd found out he was crazy.

On the down side, taking time out for a little recreational sex probably wouldn't help her figure out whatever she needed to so they could solve this mystery and get home. Of course, a small and shameful yet insistent part of her thought maybe staying in a place where she had a handsome not-crazy boyfriend and where no one was trying to kill her wouldn't be so bad.

"Carter," she said gently, and he jerked away.

"Who's Carter?"

She blinked. "Sorry ... dear. I got confused. Think I may have hit my head last night." That sounded reasonable.

Not-Carter stared at her suspiciously. "Are you seeing another guy, Shayera?"

"What do you think?" she said, putting on her best smile and taking his hand again. She was used to this, to playing a role. She was a little out of practice, but some things just came back naturally.

"What do I think?" He snorted. "Since when does it matter to you what I think?"

"Always," she said, hoping he believed her. "You matter to me. Sometimes I forget how much."

It seemed to work. A smile curved around his lips. She kissed him quickly and smiled back.

"Hey," he said, leaning back in her couch and pulling her against him. "Remember how we used to talk about just packing up one day and leaving this rat trap of a town? Now would be a great time. Just kick the sand from our shoes and go. We could be in Reno by tonight, get married first thing tomorrow. You'd be Mrs. Joe Gardner and to hell with anyone who said otherwise."

She heard the excitement in his voice, but stiffened at the word "married." The fact that she had no interest in actually making a formal commitment to Carter, er, Joe aside, she didn't dare put too much distance between herself and the others just in case that jinxed the spell somehow.

"We'll talk about it," she said, knowing they wouldn't.

Joe didn't hear her, or he was too lost in his own fantasies. "Yeah, I figure we can go East. Maybe Central City, maybe all the way to the coast. I got a cousin in Indiana, has a farm. We could stay with him, get a place of our own, settle down." His hands roamed over her hair and to her back. "Have a couple, six kids." His mouth went to her ear.

But she'd talked with Batman about that very subject, and there was a reality that wouldn't even have a chance if they didn't get out of here.

She pushed him away. "Carter, I mean Joe ... "

Now he was angry. "Dammit, Shayera! Who is this Carter guy?!"

"I ... Just forgot," she said again as he stood up.

"I'm going to go get some air," he said, and he stormed out of the house. She waited until she heard his tires squeal as he pulled away before she got up from the couch.

She needed to talk to John.

* * *

When Diana woke, it was to the sound of the door closing behind Audrey. She sat upright, cast off her covers, and sprinted after her down the hallway to the stairs, where Audrey was making her way down quickly. 

"Audrey, wait! I wanted to ask you something."

"Not now, darling," she called back, not stopping. "I have an audition. Tonight, we will celebrate my new role and you can ask me your silly questions. Ciao!" She went out the front door of the building, and while Diana was tempted to follow her, doing so in an unfamiliar neighborhood wearing only her nightgown was not the best idea.

She walked slowly back up the stairs to her apartment, wondering what her next move ought to be. Another inspection of her home, this time in daylight, did nothing to change her opinion of the cramped little room nor did it shed any light on who Diana was supposed to be, much less how she knew Vixen or why she might want to kill her.

In the wardrobe, she found a dozen simple outfits that fit her frame rather than Audrey's tiny one, as well as a handful of fancier dresses like the one she'd been wearing last night. At the end of the hallway was a communal bathroom; a slightly overweight man wearing only a towel emerged as she watched, then made his way to his own apartment next door.

"Morning, Prince," he said amicably.

"Good morning," she replied. She thought fast. "I overindulged at the party last night." She placed a hand to her head. "Lucky thing I made it home."

The man laughed. "You got that right, sweetheart. Told you not to go palling around with that Wayne creep. He could've slipped you a mickey, you wouldn't know where you woke up."

She smiled in what she hoped was a somewhat helpless fashion, gritting her teeth just a little as she did. "I'm sure Mr. Wayne wouldn't do that."

"Whatever, dollface," said the man, opening his door. She got a glimpse of his apartment, just as small as hers with another set of narrow beds. "Hey, Boost. Prince made it home last night. You owe me a buck."

Just then, a blond man wearing another towel popped out of the apartment and dashed to the bathroom door before Diana could think of doing the same. "You better've saved me some hot water this time, Kord."

"Quitcher whining," said Kord as the bathroom door shut and she heard a squeak of a tap being opened and water spraying. He looked at Diana. "Bet you two dollars he sings 'Danny Boy' before he's done."

"Not a bet I'm willing to take," she said, and read the disappointment. "I think I'm going to make some breakfast, and wait for ... Boost to finish his shower."

"Good idea," said Kord. "Hey, willya tell Wally he still owes me ten dollars the next time you see him?"

"Sure," she said. Her neighbors knew Wally. This was a piece of information to file away for later.

In her small icebox, she found a few eggs, and there was a loaf of hard bread by the sink. With a little trial and error, Diana had eggs and toast ready in about twenty minutes. As she was finishing her meal, there was a knock on the door. "Prince!"

She opened the door to find Kord dressed in a rumpled blue suit. He held a newspaper in one hand. "You didn't say Macabe was killed last night," he said urgently.

"I'm sorry," she responded, observing him. His face was paler than it had been, and his other hand clenched and unclenched. "I forgot."

He laughed a little. Boost came out of their apartment, somber as his friend was worried. "She forgot," Kord told his roommate.

"How bad is this?" asked Boost.

Kord shrugged. "You know Jones. If he's calling all his markers due now ... " He rubbed a hand through his brown hair. "I'm getting out of town. This is about to go bad."

"Tell me how I can help," Diana said.

"Prince, you ain't got a thousand dollars lying around, and Mr. Jones isn't going to like it when I tell him I don't either."

"J'onn?"

"Yeah," said Boost. "You soft in the head all of a sudden, Prince?"

"Long night," she said.

"You been hanging out with him in your society swinging?" Kord asked, sudden hope flaring on his face.

"A little." Don't commit to anything, not yet.

"Then could you talk to him for me?" Kord grabbed her hand. "Tell him we're friends, you and me. I got you that nice job with West, didn't I? So we're friends. And you know I'm good for the G, just need a little more time." He squeezed her hand so hard that it made her gasp in pain. A trickle of fear ran down her spine. Diana was used to being able to take punches without a problem, but now she was merely ... human.

Kord let go. "Jeez, I'm sorry, Prince."

"I'll talk to him. I don't think he's going to be asking anyone for any money right now."

"That's great. That's really great. Thanks, Prince. You're a swell girl."

Diana nodded, ignoring the "girl." She rewound the conversation. "Speaking of my job ... "

* * *

The soft clink of the porcelain cup onto its saucer stirred J'onn. He'd had visions of the strangest things: dragons, pistols, a fox gone to ground, and even now as he blinked his way into consciousness, he was unsure of what had been real and what had been mere vision. 

He'd dreamed.

Martians neither slept nor dreamed as humans, Kryptonians, and Thanagarians did, requiring instead only brief respite to organize their thoughts. He reassessed his opinion of the spell's strength, that it might persuade him to change his very nature.

Someone was standing beside the desk. As he sat up, pain shot through his back. "Ouch."

"Next time, come to bed," said the woman who wasn't Ming.

"I will." The aroma of the coffee wafted towards him, and he gratefully picked up the cup to gulp it. "Thank you."

"You're welcome. Did you find what you were looking for?"

"I'm not sure," he said.

"She's really dead?"

"Yes." He would have to make time to speak with Green Lantern later. J'onn was well-versed with the loss of love, and while this situation should only be a temporary one, John would be experiencing grief. Perhaps not merely that, J'onn knew, but he would start with grief.

He turned to the woman who was not his wife again. Watching her, knowing she had the face and form of the woman he loved without the spark that made her unique and beloved, these were a different kind of grief. Perhaps when this was all finished, he would discover Morgaine le Fay's hand behind the game, just like the last time. And then J'onn would hunt her down and crush her lying, manipulative throat.

"Ming, I need to ask you to do something for me."

A tired shrug. This wasn't the first time she'd been asked.

"I am not sure you'll be safe here with me right now."

She tilted her head, and the familiar gesture pricked him. "Who is it this time?"

"I'm sorry?"

"The last time you sent me to stay with my sister, it was because you'd crossed Bertinelli. Then he ended up dead." She held up a hand as he started. "I'm not asking if you killed him. I stay out of your business. Who is it this time? Wayne? The Mayor?"

"I can't say." The half-lies were so easy. "Go see your sister."

"I could help you," she said, placing a warm hand on his. "I don't understand all the intricacies of what you do, but I could help."

"You can't. Not unless you know who killed Ms. Macabe."

"If I did, I'd shake his hand," she said. "Don't bother calling." She hurried from the office, and he heard the hitch of her breath as she started to weep.

He didn't dare follow her. Instead, he turned back to his perusal of the documents. He'd made a series of piles and had left himself notes inside the books he couldn't separate. He'd found a safe, but he'd made an educated guess on the combination, and found it on his third attempt: not Ming's birthday, nor his own false date, but the day he'd arrived on Earth. Incongruous, but effective. The papers within the safe mostly comprised what he thought of as System Two.

System One contained account numbers and data regarding what looked like the business of maintaining Vixen's extensive financial assets. System Two was linked to System One in certain specific places: monies transferred from one account to another, then mysteriously vanished from the first set of documents, only to reappear in the same amount in a line of the second set, from there to be distributed outwards in a weird web of what appeared to be loans and investments entirely unrelated to Vixen. Her signature wasn't on any of the documents, while it did appear on most of the documents in System One.

The J'onn J'onzz --- or Jean Jones, as the documents read --- he was pretending to be had indeed been "skimming," as Miss Gordon had accused. So perhaps Vixen had discovered his pilfering and was about to announce it to the world. "Maybe she found you out," Ming had said, and J'onn wondered if that was true. Rather than confirming his own innocence, he'd brought it into question even to himself.

He was curious as well about a subsection of both systems. John Stewart's signature graced a handful of documents and cheques, some of them relating to purchases J'onn could follow, some of them baffling: leather armchairs, hunting gear and apparel, but he'd also purchased a small house a few miles from his home address, and there were food and clothing bills sent to that address and paid for out of a side account J'onn had tallied in a small ledger in the safe.

He jotted down notes. To be safe, he made them in his own language. He could translate them when he met with the others later.

* * *

It took Wally a few tries turning the key in the lock--it wasn't as if he'd ever been to this office despite the fact that his name was stenciled on the rippled glass door and that was this was the address on the business card. Diana tapped one foot impatiently while he fumbled. Finally he got the door open. 

As he walked in, the oddly familiar scent of stale cigarettes greeted him, mixed with some kind of lingering booze scent, musty papers, old wood. He wondered why the _scents_ should be familiar. But as for the rest, there was a perfectly good reason why he knew he'd see what he expected to see. The blinking of a neon sign through the Venetian blinds, casting lines down onto the worn wooden floorboards seemed right, although he could see the neon sign was red and that wasn't quite right, because this should all have been in black and white. As for the rest of it, filing cabinets, the wooden desk in the middle of the room, the bench along one wall, the water cooler with its big, old-fashioned glass tank, the door open to the inner office where he made out the corner of a bigger desk, a coat rack, and papers in the kind of jumbled mess that would make the Watchtower maintenance staff swoon. It was almost like home.

Diana's heels tapped behind him and came to a stop. Wally walked around the desk and traced his fingers over the skeletal keys of the black typewriter. There was no power cord, of course. The bakelite telephone was enormous, with a rotary dial.

"Okay, shweetheart," Wally drawled. He removed his fedora and threw it in the direction of a coat rack in the inner office. It missed wildly and knocked over an empty bottle of gin instead. "Let's get down to work."

"I beg your pardon?" Diana turned sharply, her voice not dangerous yet, only startled.

Wally picked up the name plate resting on the desk. "You work for me."

She took the name plate from him and a crease appeared in the middle of her forehead as she frowned.

"I'm your secretary?"

He'd never heard her voice go up like that into a squeak before. "Girl Friday," he corrected. "Now, the first thing we have to do is make a list of everyone who was at that party. Why don't you type while I dictate, shweetheart."

Wally was on the opposite side of the desk from Diana, his back to the window, when her hand shot out, grabbed him by the lapels of his trenchcoat, and wrenched him towards her so the desk hit his midsection.

They were nose to nose as she said, enunciating each word carefully, "Number one, you stop calling me 'sweetheart.' Number two, I. Do. Not. Do. Your. Typing. Number three--" she let go of him. "I've seen some of the old movies. You are no Humphrey Bogart."

He gulped. "I was just kidding, Diana. As long as we're ... here ... stuck in these roles, we have to act like them. Apparently, you're my Girl Friday." As her face darkened, he hastily added, "It's not so bad. The Girl Fridays were always smart and called the hero on all his bullshit. They were also very kind and would never, ever hit Sam Spade."

"Do your own typing, Wally." Diana sat on the edge of the desk, folded her arms, and crossed one long, long, long, long leg over the other.

_You gotta love forties fashion._

He shrugged out of his damp coat, flung it at the bench, then sat in the wooden swivel chair. Wally began to spin in it, before he realized that was most definitely not something Sam Spade would do, so he stopped.

"Okay." He located a sheet of paper on the desk, inserted it into the typewriter, turned the knob, and advanced the carriage. "So who was there?"

"Bruce," said Diana.

He began to type. The keys were like iron under his fingers, resistant, but the letter pads smacked against the paper in a satisfying way that was nothing like typing on a computer.

They were halfway through the list when he got bored, and decided he could do this faster if he typed a whole lot faster without waiting for Diana's input, but of course his fingers wouldn't obey him to go faster. He was a decent typist and managed to go fast enough to snarl up the keys, but not as fast as, well, he should have been able to go. If he'd been typing _that_ kind of fast, he supposed the typewriter would have been toast.

Wally stood up.

"What is it?" Diana asked.

"Hang on a second." He ran across the room, the floorboards creaking under his shoes. Then he ran back.

"Wally, what are you _doing_?"

He did it again.

Diana ignored him, leaning over and to peer at the list so far. Wally ran back and forth across the room again, then started jogging in place.

"Stop that," Diana said sharply.

"I can't help it. I need to _move_."

"Can you try to focus?" She put her hand to her face. "No, never mind. I forgot who I'm talking to."

Wally sat down again, then rested his forehead against the cool metal of the typewriter casing, just for a moment. Sam Spade never gave up; neither would Wally West. "Right. Now, who else?" He kept typing.

After about an hour, Diana went and made them both coffee, and he was surprised when she put in lots of milk and six sugars without having to ask him first.

* * *

The police were still poking around the banquet hall when Bruce came downstairs. Barbara had been a wealth of gossip, though how much of it was true and how much mere hot air was anyone's guess. He would need to reconvene with the rest and see if they'd discovered anything of value. 

"Good morning, sir," said Alfred, handing him his paper as Bruce padded into the kitchen. Strong coffee and good bacon mingled their odors, and his stomach growled.

As Bruce ate and drank, he read over Clark's article. He had to stop and reread parts several times, as the words on the page refused to coincide with what he remembered of last night's events. "Alfred?"

"Yes, sir?"

"Did Mr. Kent struggle with the gunman in the darkness before the lights came back on?"

Alfred paused. "I wouldn't know, sir. However, may I remind you of your previous remarks regarding Mr. Kent's estranged relationship with the truth?"

Bruce smiled around his coffee. "I stand reminded."

"If you'll forgive me for saying so, sir, you are handling the loss of Miss Macabe with remarkable stoicism."

"I'm not one to dwell on the past," Bruce said, and the astonished expression on Alfred's face told him what he needed to know in regards to passing off that particular lie while he was here, wherever "here" was.

"Miss Gordon left early this morning, I see," Alfred said, turning back to the sink to wash a dish. "She appeared greatly agitated. Shall I have the usual bouquet sent from Ms. Isley's shop, along with a token of affection?"

"Not right now, Alfred." He'd delayed her amorous intentions with a hasty promise of seeing her tonight.

As if reading his mind, Alfred said, "Shall I check your calendar for any rendezvous scheduled for this evening?"

"Actually, clear my calendar, and place calls to the people I saw in the study last night after the shooting. I'd like to see them here at noon."

"Is that wise, sir? All of them are highly suspect in the murder. Perhaps you should distance yourself from them, lest suspicion fall on you."

"Vixen was killed here, Alfred. I'm automatically a suspect."

"I suppose, sir," said Alfred doubtfully. "However, I believe the police will be focusing their enquiry primarily on Mr. Stewart and his paramour." Barbara had told him that rumor, too. "It may be prudent to maintain a certain detachment from the two of them for now."

Bruce considered a protest, but he had to be watchful. If he or any of them acted too far out of character, it might derail the plot. "Fine. I'll contact them later. Tell the rest I want to see them."

"Yes, sir."

While Alfred went to make the calls, Bruce reread the article. He was going to have a chat with Clark, too.

* * *

Rex Mason's face wasn't the first thing John wanted to see in the morning, even if it was accompanied by coffee. "Thanks, Mace," he said, before he remembered where he was and who he was. 

He'd been up until nearly dawn, searching through the house for clues. He'd fallen asleep looking through book after book of black-and-white photographs. It was bad enough seeing the photos from someone else's vacations, but add to it the surreal factor of seeing himself on those vacations he never took, and John had been trapped in boredom with himself. Did anyone really need to take an entire roll of pictures of John glowering in front of various buildings in what looked like Greece? Mari, this Mari, apparently had. She appeared in many of the photos, sunny smile splashed across the page like dozens of others he'd seen. In the real world, she'd perfected that smile, that turn of head and lift of chin, and it had made her famous. Here too, it seemed.

"Sir," said Mason. "I couldn't stand to wake you up earlier. The calls have been coming in non-stop, and the flowers are already filling the front hallway. I've spoken to the funeral home, but since Ms. Macabe is still," he swallowed, "with the police, I couldn't tell them when we would be planning the funeral. I thought you could perhaps ... " He tapered off.

John stared into his coffee, then tossed the last of it back. "Handle it."

"Sir?"

"Handle the arrangements. If you need me to sign something, find me, but otherwise, do what needs to be done, and tell me when and where to show up."

"But don't you want to ... "

"I thought I just gave you an order." It was mean, John knew, but he wasn't about to spend the next couple of days worrying about burying her, not if he could use that time to find a way to keep her alive.

He went back to his pictures as Mason left. Now he could hear the jingling of the phone from downstairs. People _would_ be calling. Mari was a Name. Whether or not she had many friends was immaterial right now. What mattered was being remembered as someone who called to say how sorry they were.

Trip to Acapulco. Trip to Venice. No dates or names on the backs. People he knew in every photo, and none of it real. The pictures merged in his mind into one whirlwind trip across the world, where Mari dragged him from place to place and took pictures to prove he was there, like some prize or like that stupid prank somebody'd played with the garden gnome.

No pictures of children anywhere, for which he'd breathed a sigh of relief.

He'd found a wedding album, had flipped through it enough to recognize Mari's hand in every detail except his uniform. Like the house, one place was carved out especially for John, and everything else was filled with her.

Mason came to the door. "Sir? You have a visitor."

"I told you to deal with it."

"Yes, sir," Mason said. "However, I don't believe Miss Hol is here to offer her condolences. Shall I send her in?"

John froze. "Yes."

He put the photo albums away. As he placed the last one on the shelf, he heard her say, "Hey."

"Do you have any good news?"

"Fine. I'm fine. Lovely weather we're having today, don't you think?"

He turned around. Shayera wore a simple tan pantsuit and her standard half-glare. She looked flushed and a little out of breath.

"What, did you walk here?"

"Never learned how to drive. Anyway, I don't live far."

"Have you got any leads?"

"Not exactly," she said. "Have you found anything?"

"Not a lot. Some old pictures. I can't find any of her personal papers. She's got to have a lawyer or something taking care of things. Probably an agent, too."

He frowned. John didn't like Mari's real agent, and it would probably be the same guy.

"I think we're sleeping together."

And then Shayera had his full attention. "What?"

"I had a chat with Carter this morning. He called you my boyfriend. Plus, the car's registration is in your name. I think you bought it."

"You said you couldn't drive," he said slowly, still nibbling at the edges of her previous statement.

"I can read."

"That doesn't mean you and I are together. Here, I mean."

"No. But I think we are, and I think you know I'm right." She went to the window. "Great view. I'm almost positive that's my place up the coast."

He didn't move. Fucking destiny, realigning the world. Of course she was right.

"Anyway," she said, turned back to face him. "I just thought you should know. I'm not sure how well 'we' managed to keep it a secret, so people probably know."

"And that puts us both at the top of the suspects list."

She nodded.

"How much did you want her dead?"

Her half-glare went full. "Don't overinflate your ego too much, Stewart. Your head won't fit in Mari's house."

"It's my house too."

"I did get a look around when I came in, you know. If you, _any_ you, had a hand in decorating anything but this room, I'll eat your hat." She nodded at a hunting cap hung on the wall.

"Better than some of the things I've seen you eat." He was kidding, but it came out in an ugly tone he barely recognized.

"I just wanted to warn you. People are going to be asking you questions, and they might involve me. I'll see you around." She turned on one heel and stalked out. He heard Mason's crisp footsteps on the tile hurrying to catch up with her and see her out properly, but John refused to go to the door and watch her leave.

* * *

To Be Continued 


	5. Chapter 4

* * *

Chapter Four

* * *

Alfred appeared at the door when Clark rang. Clark thanked him, observing as much as he could of the man without being intrusive. People he'd encountered thus far had been different from their originals in small ways. Some alterations could be accounted for by the change in time period, though not all. Lois, Jimmy, Perry, everyone was off in the ways they walked, the things they did. Clark swore he'd seen Perry's hand on Lois' butt twice, though as soon as he'd checked to make sure, the hand had been gone and Lois' expression hadn't invited questions.

He was noticing more than just that, though. Every face he encountered was familiar, if only distantly so. Old friends from school, people he saw on the Metropolis streets every day, and each of them just that much wrong that it itched him between the shoulder blades and made him want to mumble a hello and hurry by.

Alfred was perfect, and this was a welcome relief as he ushered Clark into the room from last night. The others were waiting, with tea and coffee and fancy cookies; Flash was already making a big dent in the latter.

As soon as the door closed, Bruce said, "Tell us you're innocent."

Clark frowned. "I'm not sure I am. I've got a motive." He felt the weight of the thin manila file in his hand, and set it down. He counted heads. "Where are John and Shayera?"

"Not coming," Bruce said. "They're already the chief suspects."

"I'll bite," said Wally. "The spouse is always the first suspect, but why her?"

"They've been having an affair."

"Right."

"What about the rest of us?" asked Diana. "All I've been able to discover is that Mari and I were supposed to have been old friends." Clark winced.

Wally added, "And I'm not sure I ever even met her."

J'onn cleared his throat. "You may not have. I've been siphoning money from her for quite some time and making loans. I believe I have extended one to you. Perhaps you couldn't pay it back?"

Diana smiled. "If the state of our office is any indication, I'd take that bet."

"'Our?'" Clark said.

"Diana's my secretary," Wally said with a grin that evaporated under a laserbeam stare from Diana.

Bruce said, "Rumor has it that I was having an affair with Vixen."

Clark asked, "Were you?" and tried not to notice how closely Diana listened to the answer.

"I'm not going to disregard any possibilities."

"Fine," said Diana. "You killed her because she was going to break up with you?"

"I didn't kill her. I checked the ballistics, as much as I could. Barbara and I were standing in the wrong place, and while I can't prove it, I think John was too close."

Clark nodded; he'd take Bruce's word for it. He picked up his folder and handed it to Diana. "I found these in a locked cabinet at work. There was a note in there too."

As Diana opened the folder, Bruce asked to see the note. Diana's eyes widened, and then she blushed. Clark knew his own blush had returned and was already headed for his neck.

"Whatcha got?" asked Wally, trying to take a look and Diana snatched the pictures away.

Bruce read aloud: "'You've received your last paycheck, Kent. M.' This is Vixen's handwriting. Were you blackmailing her?"

"He was," Diana stated. The laserbeams had turned up and were aimed at Clark now. That didn't make what he had to say next any easier, and all of a sudden he was uncomfortably reminded that he wasn't invulnerable anymore.

"Look through all of them."

She turned back to the photographs, moving them up away from where Wally was still trying to see until J'onn finally smacked him on the back of the head.

"Ow!"

Diana's eyes narrowed and this time the setting was dialed up to "thermonuclear." "Why," she asked in a misleadingly calm voice, "am I in some of the pictures?"

Bruce covered his mouth with his hand, while Wally's hung open.

"I'm a photographer, among other things. The quality isn't the best on these, so either I took them when I was young, or bought them from someone who did."

"Now you know how you knew her," J'onn said in the world's best deadpan.

Bruce said, "Barbara told me Vixen was going to make an announcement at the party, but didn't get a chance. Maybe she was going to come clean about the pictures. She's an established star here, one of the biggest names in the movie industry. Maybe she thought she could finally get out from under your thumb."

"That's what I was thinking," Clark admitted. Then he risked looking at Diana again. "But if that was her announcement, your reputation would have been damaged, too. You might have killed her to keep your name clear."

Bruce rubbed his face. "Great. I was hoping we'd come back with reasons no one had a motive, and it turns out we all do."

"I dunno," said Wally. "Sounds like my motive is more for killing J'onn." He flashed J'onn a wide grin, which J'onn returned.

"I'll watch my back around you, then."

There was a gentle rap on the door. "Yes?" called Bruce.

"Sir," Alfred said, stepping inside gracefully, "I hate to interrupt your discussion. However, I believe I may be of some use."

The others shared a glance. How much had he overheard? "Go on."

Looking flustered, Alfred sidled over to his employer, and with great delicacy, placed something in his hand. "I found this as I was cleaning up this morning."

"The police let you clean up the crime scene?" Bruce held the item up to the light: a green matchbook.

"Certainly not," Alfred said. "However, they were precise in their area of interest, and I must say, the hall needed a good sweeping."

"And you found this?"

Alfred nodded. "I thought it might be, well, a _clue_, sir."

J'onn asked him, "Why didn't you give it to the police?"

Alfred stared at him in polite incomprehension. "The police?"

"It's their investigation," said Bruce, though he didn't give it back.

"Mr. Jones, perhaps you have not had occasion to deal with the Los Diablos police force?"

"Assume I have not."

"Ah. Then let me assure you that they are the finest men money can buy, and the Mayor pays them handsomely to overlook his many less-than-favorable qualities."

"You don't like the Mayor?" asked Diana.

"I have no opinion on Mr. Queen." He nodded to Bruce. "Should you need me, sir, I will be in the kitchen. Shall I prepare a meal for your guests?"

"No, that won't be necessary. Thank you, Alfred." When the door closed, Bruce examined the matchbook more closely. "The Emerald Parrot. Hm."

"'Mayor Queen?'" Wally said incredulously. "Ollie? No, seriously, _Ollie?!_ Who'd put him in charge of a city?"

"It's a lead," said Bruce. "This has been stepped on and I've touched it, so fingerprinting is going to be out of the question." He handed it to Diana. "You two. Check it out."

Diana didn't hide her glance at her partner before she said to Bruce, "Come with us."

"I can't. Alfred told me I have a film opening tonight, and if I cancel, it'll make more problems. But I want this checked out. Wally's the detective. Go detect. Diana, watch his back when he does something stupid."

"Hey!"

"What about us?" Clark asked.

"Search through the back archives of the paper, as much as you can without rousing suspicion. Start with the last couple of years, looking for anything about any of us, and especially anything about Vixen. See if you've got any snitches in your pocket and ask what they've heard. J'onn, I want you to fill in John and Shayera on what we've discovered so far. Tell them to lie low and stay out of trouble, and if the police ask them anything, tell them to make sure they've got lawyers. Then follow the money. You were Vixen's accountant; go talk to her lawyer. Find her will if she has one. See who benefits from her death. Money isn't always the prime motive for murder, but it's a big one. Everyone report back to me if you can, but don't leave messages with Alfred."

Wally asked, "Don't you trust him?"

"With my life," Bruce said, absently, "but I don't want to get anyone involved in our investigation who isn't real."

"Come on," said Diana. "If we're going to check out this club, I'm going to need to change. Oh," she said, "and one other thing." Without looking, she threw the pictures into the fireplace, where they caught and burned.

"That was evidence," Bruce growled.

"Now it's kindling," Diana snapped back, though her anger was still directed at Clark. _Note to self: don't be alone in a dark alley with Diana for a long time after this._ "Come on, _boss_," she said to Wally less than kindly. "If we're going out tonight, I need a change of clothes. And a shower."

J'onn followed them out, and Bruce placed a hand on Clark's elbow to hold him there.

"'The quality isn't the best?' How long did it take you to examine them?"

Clark watched the others safely out in the hallway. "Diana's going to kill me, isn't she? We're going to get home, and she's going to find a chunk of kryptonite, and she's going to shove it up my nose."

"Yes. And then she's going to tell Vixen."

"I'm a dead man."

* * *

J'onn told Lantern as simply as he could what they'd discussed. Lantern nodded as he spoke, until J'onn reluctantly mentioned the photographs. Normally, he would be well aware of the emotional state of his friends; now he had to rely on mere words and gestures. He prepared himself for an outburst which never came.

"Dirty pictures? Seriously?"

J'onn nodded. "I can only assume from Superman and Diana's reactions, but almost certainly so."

"But you didn't see them."

"No. Diana burned them."

"Why?"

"She was apparently in some of them with Vixen."

The Lantern's face went blank. Again, J'onn tensed for an emotional display. Instead, Lantern said, slowly and after some thought, "That's an interesting mental image." He glanced at J'onn again. "Burned them, you said?"

"To ashes."

Lantern sighed. "You know, it's funny. I've spent all last night and all of today trying to find something to tell me why someone would want to kill Mari, but all I've found are pictures of her. They're on the walls, they're in books. Clark even seems to have a few," he said, quirking his mouth. "This is all out of our heads, isn't it?"

"That would coincide with what Zatanna indicated." He tried not to think of his wife.

Lantern reached over and picked up a photo album, opened it. Photographs of Vixen, held in place with small tabs, looked up from the page. "I'm not sure I'm going to like what's in my head."

Metamorpho gave J'onn the information for Vixen's lawyer, and Lantern promised to call and ensure J'onn would have access to all her documents. J'onn left him there in his home, surrounded by her image, and went to find Shayera.

She didn't live far, merely a few miles down the road in the same small house whose deed he kept in his safe. Two cars were parked out front, he noticed as he approached, and he went on his guard just in case.

There was no answer to his first knock, nor his second. Deeply concerned now, J'onn was about to break into the house to make sure Shayera was still alive, when the door swung open and she stood there wearing only a loosely-tied robe. Her hair was mussed as if she'd been asleep.

"Oh. Hi."

"Did I wake you?" The possibility seemed unlikely, considering the dappled afternoon sunlight through the palm trees.

"Wake?" She blinked, and then she yawned. "Just getting a little rest, yes." Alone among the aliens he knew, she'd always been a subject to read from speech and movement instead of thought, and J'onn had belatedly learned to tell when she was lying through her teeth.

"May I come in?"

"Come in? Sure," she said, a bit loudly. She stepped aside, and gestured him through the cluttered kitchen into her small living room. He sat down on the couch.

"The rest of us, save you and Lantern, met earlier to discuss what we've found so far. Unfortunately, the news isn't good. I ... "

She held up her hand. "We can't discuss this now, J'onn."

"I'm afraid we must. Everyone had a motive. I was stealing from her. Super---" Her hand went in front of his mouth.

"I said, we can't discuss this now." Her eyes went past him, and he turned his head to see Carter Hall come out of the bedroom and lounge against one wall. He wore an unbuttoned shirt and a pair of shorts, neither of which he'd been wearing a few minutes ago, if J'onn was any judge.

"I didn't realize you had company."

"Joe," she said, "have you met my friend J'onn J'onzz?"

Hall, or Joe as she was calling him, stretched out a friendly hand. "Mr. Jones, nice to finally meet you."

"Yes," said J'onn, shaking his hand.

"Joe, I noticed there's an orange tree not two minutes' walk up the road. Think you could go get us a few while I talk to J'onn, so he can leave?"

Joe smiled, though the friendliness was gone. "You sure, honey?"

"I'll be fine. Go on."

The door shut behind him, and J'onn turned back to Shayera. "You know that isn't Carter Hall."

"Joe Gardner here. It was his name before he changed it, I think. Anyway, I know."

"But how can you even think of having relations with someone whose mind isn't there?"

"J'onn, I'm not using him for his mind." She waved a hand. "Anyway, he's been telling me things I need to know. I'm _good_ at intelligence gathering. This just happens to be a fun way of gathering it."

There were layers to that statement, he knew, but he didn't have the time to explore them. "I've been stealing money from Vixen. Part of it has been with Lantern's blessing, to take care of you."

"I got that part," she said, playing with the hem of her robe. "Go on."

"Superman has been blackmailing her. Diana may have killed her for what he was blackmailing her with. Batman may have been sleeping with her, although he says the angle of the shot was wrong for him to be the killer."

"He'd know. Batman knows _everything_," she said dramatically. "What about Wally?"

"I loaned him money, but it was Vixen's money. He may have wanted to see his loan permanently forgiven. We don't know."

"John would inherit everything if she died."

"I'm checking on that next. And then there's you."

"Yeah. I inherit John." She firmed her jaw. "To hell with that. Carter? Joe, I mean? Apparently I've been seeing him on the side. You know, when my 'boyfriend' hasn't been around. If there's a place in this stupid story for the Other Woman to run off with her good-looking sweetheart, sign me up for it."

"We need to focus on finding the killer, so we can escape and rescue Vixen. Not play 'house' with the images of the others we know here."

Her eyes flickered. "Speaking of, is Ming ... "

He nodded. "I sent her away. It's not her, and I cannot imagine being with someone who isn't."

"Lecture's over, J'onn. I'll stay focused. And I'd like to point out, this is even though I'm finally somewhere that everyone doesn't hate me on sight. It's a nice change."

"It's not real," he said, but he placed his hand atop hers, just as Hall returned. "I will keep you updated."

"Thanks," Shayera said, and her smile came back. "Those look great, dear." She tossed one to J'onn. "Little snack for you."

"Thank you," he said, and even as he let himself out, he noted that her attention was already back on Hall. He sighed.

At least she would stay indoors and out of trouble.

* * *

Clark had just set foot back in the office when Perry stormed out and yelled, "Kent! Lane! Fire over on Twelfth! One of the rat-traps is going up. I just got the call. I want you there. I want names. I want pictures." The cigar in his mouth moved from one side to the other. "You think you can handle that, Kent?"

"Sure, Perry," Clark said, grabbing his hat. Lois' hat was already in place, two hatpins holding it primly. "Though do you really need both of us there?"

Perry rolled his eyes. "You still hung over from last night, Kent?"

"No, sir."

"Then stop askin' stupid questions."

"Come on," Lois said, grabbing his arm. Clark had no idea where Twelfth was, though fortunately Lois was too busy leading him to notice. They dashed through the streets, walking boldly through traffic, Clark trying to keep up with her brisk pace.

A driver honked as it screeched to a stop. "Where's the fire, lady?!"

"That way," Lois said, not looking back, and as they turned the corner, Clark saw the smoke climbing into the sky.

Firefighters were already on the scene, wearing old-fashioned yellow outfits with hoses that were far too powerless to reach the top story of the building. A few policemen stood in front of the onlookers, pushing people back and away while the rescuers tried to do their work. With his heart sinking into his feet, Clark saw small figures in the windows of the top floor, and the ladder was two stories below.

Lois pulled out her notebook and began writing. "Flames engulfed the building at the corner of Twelfth and Vine," she muttered.

"We have to help them."

"Good one, Kent. Can you snap some pictures already?"

The camera was in his hands, and he pointed it up. Small figures, yes, and unclear in the heat distortion from the fire. If he was himself, he could change and fly up and save them and blow the oxygen away from the fire to extinguish it.

_**click**_ He took another photograph. Someone, desperate not to burn, jumped from a window, accompanied by screams from the crowd. _**click**_

The fingers operating the camera were numb. His heart was numb. Beneath the shouts, he fancied he could hear the scratch of Lois' pencil on her notepad, etching out dramatic statements to delineate the end of lives.

_They're not really there. They're not really dying. This isn't real._

More screams, and then he'd had enough. He shoved the camera at Lois. Ignoring her shocked look, he pushed his way through the crowd to the entrance to the neighboring building. Inside, he ran to the front desk. "Maintenance closet! NOW!" The receptionist, who looked so much like Lana Lang that it hurt to see her quiver away from him, pointed down a hallway. Clark thanked her hurriedly and then ran, wrenching open the door.

There was a ladder.

Clark huffed and strained it up the flights of stairs, refusing to acknowledge the surprise and suspicion on the faces of the people he pushed out of his way. At last he reached the floor across from the one where he'd seen the trapped victims, and he pushed away the gawkers staring out the window.

"Help me!" he ordered the largest men standing there, two guys he'd known on the Smallville High football team. They levered open the window and pushed the ladder out towards the burning building. Here he could make out their faces, small and scared, covered by hands as they coughed.

"Get down! Under the smoke!"

He wasn't sure they heard him, but they did scrunch down out of sight as Clark and the others pushed the ladder.

Too short. A good ten feet too short, and it took all of Clark's strength not to let it fall on the people beneath them. As he stared out, unable to do the least thing to help, he saw a larger figure loom into the window, and scoop up the smaller ones from the floor.

"Nice try, mister," said a woman standing near him. Clark just nodded, and pulled the ladder back inside.

After he'd slowly carried it back downstairs again and apologized to Lana, he made his way back to where he'd left Lois. She was chatting amiably with a soot-streaked fireman who looked a lot like John Irons.

"There you are, Kent," she said. "Take a picture of my friend here. Fireman Irons just saved two kids from the top floor."

"Just my job, ma'am," said Steel, and he smiled for Clark's camera. Clark would make certain the caption for the photo included the word "hero."

* * *

As a reporter in Los Diablos, Clark figured he'd better get more familiar with the city and its people. He knew Metropolis inside and out, he knew the names of city clerks, the entire structure of city government, the name of the guy who ran the cash register at the deli across from _The Daily Planet_, which hot dog stand had the best sauerkraut, who the corrupt cops were, how to find a place to change in the middle of a busy downtown street on a sunny afternoon.

The paper he worked for here was colorful but not useful. Half of what was in there had to be lies. Clark put the paper down and rubbed the bridge of his nose beneath his glasses. The scratchy wool couch in the office was worn with an indentation in the shape of his body; he doubted this Clark Kent often slept in a real bed. Certainly Lois hadn't appeared surprised when he'd hung back while she and Jimmy and the rest had gone home for the evening.

From the desk a lamp sent out a triangular cone of light, blacking out the windows, making them reflect himself and the room. Clark thought he looked comfortable, as if he fit with the simple furniture. He liked the typewriter for aesthetic reasons but found it beyond frustrating to type on it. Even when he didn't type using his powers to go super fast, he was a crack typist, almost as fast as Lois. The keys of this typewriter kept getting jammed up on him. He imagined Wally might be having the same problem. Although Wally was a private eye here and they didn't need to type, somehow Clark doubted that Diana would ever agree to do his typing for him.

He blinked a few times, then returned to his reading. He could fact-check what he'd read with a little leg work later. At least by reading this rag, he was learning names, the general lay of the land. Like Pa walking the fields before planting time, looking for rocks. Sometimes the walk turned up arrowheads, bits of pottery left behind by pioneers, other interesting artifacts. _You never know what walking the field might turn up._

A name leapt out at him from the page.

_"Deputy Mayor Luthor said yesterday that ..."_

Clark flung the newspaper across the room, knowing it was childish. He'd just have to walk across the room and pick it up again to keep reading.

He'd wondered. Lex had crossed his mind but so far he hadn't surfaced. But there he was, one heartbeat away from one of the most powerful local political posts in the country, at the entrance to a road that could lead him to governor, and then ...

Sighing, Clark got up and walked across the room. He bent over, picked up the crumpled newspaper, smoothed it out, sat back down and kept on reading.

* * *

Barbara smirked and giggled and cooed from his arm as the usher led them to their seats. Too many reporters had been waiting outside the theatre, shoving notepads into his face with questions about Mari.

Above them on the marquee as they'd walked in, Bruce had read her name. The party last night had been a pre-premiere party, celebrating the opening of her twentieth film with him, and she should be here tonight, grinning for pictures with John at her side. Instead, Bruce saw Matt Hagen waving at the crowds and that was all.

Vixen's death hadn't dimmed the excitement of the crowd. The streets were packed for blocks around, as people craned to see Bruce, stood in line for sold-out tickets. Everyone wanted to see her last movie, and take a little piece of her home.

He thought he'd left the psychopaths back in Gotham.

The crowd inside the theatre hushed as the lights dimmed and then rose again. Babs nudged him. "Aren't you gonna say anything?"

Say? They expected him to stand up and introduce the film?

He turned and caught Hagen's eye in the back. "Matt, why don't you say a few words?"

Hagen shrugged, pecked his date on the cheek, and loped to the front of the theatre. "Hi, everyone, and thanks for coming out tonight. I know we're all still reeling from the news. Mari was a great gal, and I think I speak for us all when I say she'll be missed. On my own behalf, let me just say that I'd like to dedicate this film to her. Mari, you were one in a million."

Barbara clapped as soon as he finished, and Bruce took up the applause. Hagen sat down to cheers with a smile, just enough of a twinkle in his eye to let Bruce know he hadn't meant a word, and then the movie started.

The plot was thin: boy meets girl, the War starts, boy goes off to fly planes against the Germans, girl stays home and carries a torch, boy is shot down and reported dead, girl almost dies in her grief and then agrees to marry her best friend (played with surprising talent by Eel O'Brian), boy comes home, they are reunited just before she says her vows, the end.

Beside him, Barbara sniffled through the last two reels, dabbing at her eyes with a hanky. Bruce cringed at the worst of the dialogue, and took mental notes of the familiar faces who played the smaller roles: Kory Anders as the seductive nurse, Jefferson Pierce as the hero's best friend who died in the third act, Ted Grant as the grizzled squadron commander.

He paid closest attention to Vixen whenever she was on screen, but her performance was consummate and he saw nothing of Mari Macabe in the character. Nothing useful, just another dead end.

* * *

As the cab pulled up to the curb outside the nightclub, Wally tried to think of a good plan for getting inside. There were two broad-shouldered, heavyset men in tuxedos guarding the door, complete with red carpet and velvet ropes. It was midnight by his pocketwatch, and a long line of men and women dressed to the nines stood outside. Another tuxedoed employee rotated a spotlight back and forth, strafing the crowd with it, then aiming to the sky, and back again. Every time the thick wooden doors opened, big band music drifted out.

"Nice dress, Princess," Wally said.

Which it was. It was long, graceful, and black, covering one of her shoulders with some kind of fabric he didn't know the name of, leaving the other shoulder bare.

"Thank you. I found it in the closet," she said and when Wally opened his mouth to say something smart about women using the phrase _oh, this old thing?_, she added, "No, Wally, it was just hanging in the closet. Actually, I own many similar gowns at home."

"There were two tuxedos in my closet. What kind of P.I. keeps two tuxedos around?"

"You, apparently." She opened the door and stepped out of the cab. Heads swiveled to watch her.

Wally paid the cab driver, then slid across the back seat to climb out after Diana. He followed in her wake onto the sidewalk and the soft red carpet. The spotlight brushed them as it completed another sweep. The lights of Los Diablos were hazy in the misty fog, which made everything around the nightclub seem brighter and sharper by comparison. The building itself was three stories tall, a simple box shape ornamented with balconies at the windows on the second and third floors. The ground floor had no windows.

Next to the doors a large poster card almost as tall as Wally displayed a black and white photograph of a light-haired woman in a sparkling, strapless black dress. She wore elbow-length black gloves, and her fingers lightly held the long stem of a microphone stand, her mouth open in mid-sing.

Her face was familiar.

A legend ran diagonally across the image: **Only at The Emerald Parrot! The Black Canary!**

Wally shook his head. This whole thing felt like the type of dreams he often had. But he didn't bother pinching himself or trying to wake up; he'd tried that at least a dozen times since they'd first seen Mari lying dead on the floor at Wayne Manor.

No, it wasn't a dream. They were trapped in a book, and if they lost a limb here, that limb was gone, at least according to Zatanna. If one of them got killed, they stayed dead, unless the murder was solved.

_Focus, West._

A few people in line eyed them resentfully as Wally and Diana walked right up to the tuxedoed guards. Diana was just putting on a charming smile, opening her mouth to speak, when one of the guards spotted Wally.

"Mr. West!" He stepped over and unhooked the velvet rope. "Haven't seen you around in a while."

"Oh. I ... I've been, uh, busy."

Diana's astonishment was gratifying, although he wondered why the P.I. was in so good with the nightclub people.

"Well, you and your lady friend can go right in. Mr. Queen mentioned he had a few things he needed to discuss with you."

He glanced at Diana, who shrugged as delicately as Diana could shrug. They stepped inside as the sound of piano, trumpets, and drums grew louder. The doors shut behind them.

At one end of the entrance hall was a coat check, manned with charmed grace by a girl who looked a lot like Stargirl. Stairs with a gilt-edged banister led to the second floor. Wally's shoes sank into the thick green carpet. Ahead of them, wide double doors were open. Four steps led down into the vast, high-ceilinged room of The Emerald Parrot's dance floor and dining room.

"What now?" Diana whispered in his ear. She hooked her arm around his.

"I guess we go find Ollie ... uh ... Mr. Queen," he whispered back.

Together, they walked down the steps. At one table there was a petite girl in a blue dress, her blonde hair swept up into a chignon, grinning mischievously as she watched her companion, a dark-haired guy in a tux, doodle on a cocktail napkin. Wally's steps faltered. Kara glanced over and noticed him staring. She pursed her lips in amusement but showed no sign of recognition.

He walked on, saw other faces in the crowd seated at the tables, some familiar, some not. Couples filled the dance floor, waiters hurried to and fro. A microphone stood lonely in the middle of a circular, small elevated stage in front of the band.

As they walked along, he heard a familiar laugh. Wally had only met Dick Grayson a few times, once in passing, several times at some gathering or other. They'd ended up drinking beer in the kitchen at the real Wayne Manor once, both worn out by the society scene at one of Bruce's charity parties. But he always seemed like a nice guy with more of a sense of humor than most of the Batfamily. Dressed in a black tuxedo, Dick leaned on a set of crutches near a large table at the center of the room, joking around with another guy in a tux. Although they were kidding around, he saw Dick scan the room repeatedly, as did the other guy, who Wally thought he should recognize but couldn't place just yet. Bodyguards.

Among the men and women also at the table Wally spotted another guy with a familiar face and red hair a few shades closer to brown than his own, face a little less happy than everyone else at the table. But Roy lifted his glass and knocked it against Ollie's as the latter raised a toast, nodding acknowledgment of whatever had been said.

Dick spotted them approaching and nudged his partner, who then lightly touched Queen on the shoulder.

Oliver Queen looked up, then rose smoothly to his feet. "Well, Mr. West." He clapped Wally on the arm hard enough to make Wally stagger. "I thought you said you'd rather -- now what was the phrase you used? 'Be trampled alive by rabid baboons'? -- than come back here."

"Well, uh," Wally fumbled. "We all say things in the heat of the moment."

"That we do. All the time, in fact," he said, and there were agreeable chuckles around the table. Even Roy smirked.

"And who might this be?" Queen's voice turned to a purr as he took Diana's hand and kissed it. "Wait, I recognize you. Weren't you in THE BACHELOR AND THE SHOWGIRL?"

Diana hesitated just a second. "Why, yes, I was. How sweet of you to remember me. It wasn't a very large role."

"It's not the size of the role that matters, dear lady, but how you play it. Isn't that what they say?"

"You're very kind." She extracted her hand gently from Queen's.

"What brings you back here, West? You come to lecture me again about pulling this city down into the quagmire while you're trying to bring it back into the light? Or maybe you're not that drunk yet."

"I have some business to discuss." Wally felt like he was being pulled down into a quagmire himself. It reminded him unpleasantly of his ninth grade play when he forgot all his lines.

"You will excuse us?" Queen bowed to the table, then turned back to Wally. "Let's go somewhere more private. Your lady friend is welcome to take my seat," he said, gallantly pulling out his chair. "Order whatever you like. The most expensive thing on the menu."

"She works with me," Wally said.

"Oh, I see." The way Queen's eyebrow quirked caused Diana to glower beside him. Wally squeezed her arm to remind her to stay in character. Then Queen nodded to his bodyguards. Dick Grayson followed them across the dining room, moving swiftly despite his crutches. Wally suspected they might be an act. There did seem to be something wrong with his leg but he looked like he was in perfect shape. He could use the crutches as a surprise weapon.

As they followed Queen towards the stage and past a thick, heavy velvet curtain, Wally tried to plan out what he would say. Obviously there was some kind of history here. Maybe Wally West, P.I. had his hands dirty at one point. Maybe he'd done some scurvy work for Queen once to make some extra money and regretted it later. Maybe he had something on Queen or vice versa. Maybe they were blackmailing each other. Either way, it seemed that Wally had once been a regular at The Emerald Parrot.

One of Ollie's bodyguards took point up a narrow flight of stairs. The bodyguard wore a garish suit that was close to fuschia, and his tie clashed, yellow and green. Wally finally realized who he was. He looked different without the domino mask, but that was no excuse since he wasn't allowed to wear it in the hospital anyway. Wally bit back the urge to ask James if he'd taken his meds.

Grayson followed last; Wally felt his stomach twitch nervously. There was no room to maneuver here at all; and while Grayson may have been a nice guy back home, he had no idea what sort of person he was here.

Or what sort of person Oliver Queen was, either.

"Please, both of you, have a seat," Queen said when they reached a low-ceilinged office that was lushly furnished with leather chairs and an oriental carpet. He went over to the mahogany sidebar and picked up a carafe of some dark liquor. "Would you care for a drink?"

"No thanks," Wally said.

"No," said Diana.

Queen shrugged, then nodded at his bodyguards, who stepped out of the room, no doubt taking up positions on either side of the door.

"I'd been hoping you would come back someday, West," Queen said, sitting down at the big oak desk. "One of my boys is in some trouble. Stupid man got caught doing some petty larceny, not worth it, not worth it at all, and I thought given your unique abilities in dealing with the PD, you might be willing to recover a few items for me." He took a swallow of his drink. "Before this minor situation gets out of hand, you understand."

"You're asking me to steal evidence?" Wally's stomach flipped again. "Why would I do that for you?"

Queen laughed. "Oh, come on, West. Pure doesn't become you. Or are you trying to forget your old friend in his time of need? I helped you get on your feet, don't forget that. If not for me you'd just be an ex-beat cop with a bad record. Was a time you were happy to take my help, or offer it."

"Things change, Queen."

"Of course." He sat back and swirled the dark liquid in the glass. "And buried secrets have a way of rising to the surface."

Wally didn't like the direction this conversation was headed. "We're here to ask you a few questions," he said, jutting out his jaw and trying to make his voice rougher. "You can talk to us, or you can talk to the police." He coughed. Keeping up the tough voice wasn't easy.

"Are you threatening me, West?"

"No, just curious why a matchbook from your club would end up at the scene of Mari Macabe's murder." Wally pulled the book out of his pocket, flashed it at Queen for a moment, then quickly pocketed it.

"Any number of guests may have dropped it. This _is_ a popular nightclub," he said with pride. "I was at the party. Possibly _I_ dropped it." He leaned forward. "Are you accusing me of murder?"

"No. We're checking leads, and there is a connection between this club and the night of the murder. Maybe you could give us a list of your patrons?"

"I don't think so." The man's voice went hard, an edge to the joviality.

"We can do this the long, hard way or the easy, quick way," Diana said suddenly, and Wally stared at her. "We can give the matchbook to the police, they'll get a warrant to search your club, and you'll be forced to turn over the list." She leaned forward, crossed her legs, and tapped her fingers on the desk. "In the process of searching this place I'm certain they'll turn up a number of interesting items I'm sure you'd rather remain hidden. Or, you can give us the list. No police, not yet. Giving you time to move your secrets elsewhere. Your club is connected to the murder of Mari Macabe somehow. We're investigating. That's all. She was a friend. We want justice done."

"I'm sorry, I can't help you." Queen rose to his feet. "And don't bother threatening me with the police, because if you do I can tell them many interesting facts about Mr. West. If you'll excuse me, I have guests waiting for me."

He walked around the desk and surprisingly, he held out his hand to Wally, who stepped away. "No hard feelings, West, eh? Maybe you'll drop by sometime. I could use help from someone like you now and again."

"I don't think so."

"My dear." Queen turned to Diana. "Enchanting to meet you." He didn't try to take her hand, only bowed. Her eyes narrowed.

Grayson and James escorted them out.

"What do you think?" Wally asked as they walked along past the darkened store fronts, away from the crowd and lights outside the nightclub.

"I'm not sure he's connected or not," Diana said. "But he's a powerful, dangerous man here. I think it might have been a mistake confronting him."

* * *

To be continued... 


	6. Chapter 5

* * *

Chapter Five

* * *

They went back to Wally's office without either of them bothering to go home to change. Diana gathered up the skirts of her gown to perch on the edge of her desk while Wally flopped onto the leather couch. Diana picked up the phone and asked the operator for Bruce's exchange as if she'd been making phone calls that way her whole life.

Naturally, he was up; from Diana's responses Wally assumed Bruce wasn't surprised to hear from them at three o'clock in the morning.

"See you in half an hour, then." Diana hung up.

Wally yawned and rubbed at his face. "Do we have time for a tiny nap?"

"No," she said. She slid from the desk, crossed the room, grabbed his arm, and hauled him to his feet.

"Bet Sam Spade never let his Girl Friday push him around like this," Wally mock-grumbled.

"Bet Sam Spade's Girl Friday never worked for anyone like you," she tossed back. "Bruce is on his way here. I thought we should type up some notes from the evening before he arrives." To his surprise, Diana sat down at the typewriter, cracked her knuckles, then poised her fingers over the keys. "So, impressions of our Mr. Queen?"

* * *

Bruce stood out in the hall for a moment listening to the sound of the typewriter within, a remark from Wally, Diana's chuckle. There was lettering on the rippled glass of the door, WALLY WEST, PRIVATE INVESTIGATOR.

Not that Wally wasn't smart --- Bruce not only knew what Wally did for a living but had copies of all his school transcripts and job performance evaluations in the Batcomputer --- but Bruce had never known anyone else who went to such great lengths to hide the fact. It seemed odd to be in a world where Wally was the detective and he himself was genuinely nothing more than the playboy.

Bruce knocked on the door, turned the knob and entered.

Diana was seated behind the desk in the main room at a typewriter, wearing a black, off-the-shoulder gown. She stood up as he walked in, moving around the desk.

He knew he was staring. Diana had a variety of gowns in her wardrobe but most of them were simple affairs, sleek black with spaghetti straps like what she'd worn the first time they met Audrey, or more businesslike dressy suits. Not like this. Not at all.

Bruce took off his hat and put it on the chair near the door, relieved for his eyes to be elsewhere, anywhere, pushing away old thoughts and longings.

"What did you find out at The Emerald Parrot?"

"Not much." Diana idly tapped her finger on the desk, leaning her thigh lightly against the wood. "Oliver Queen wanted to ask Wally for a favor."

"Seems I ... I mean, Wally West, P.I., has some kind of a history with the guy." Wally leaned back and folded his arms behind his head. "I think he loaned me some money to start my business. And I used to do some kind of dirty work for him until I got fed up and decided to go back to the side of the angels. Become an honest man."

"Did you get a guest list out of him?"

"No dice," said Wally. "Guy's as stubborn as ... well, as any number of people we know."

"What about his operation? Who was with him?"

"Saw a lot of familiar faces there. Roy Harper. He seems to be Ollie's right-hand man, nothing odd about that." Wally hesitated. He looked at Diana before adding, "Saw Dick Grayson there."

"What was he doing?" Bruce asked.

"Ollie's bodyguard. He was on crutches. Didn't look like he really needed them all that much," Wally added quickly, his hand making a steadying motion at Bruce. "He moved around pretty good. I wouldn't want to take him in a fight."

"So Dick is in Ollie's operation," Bruce said flatly.

It didn't matter. None of them were real, but Bruce wondered if Dick on crutches was something his own mind had produced, or Wally's, or was the joint combination of all of them who had met Dick.

Didn't matter.

Wally laughed. "The other bodyguard was one of my ... I mean the real me ... archenemies, The Trickster. Looks just as nervous here as he always does back home."

"What do we do now?" Diana asked, smoothing down the fabric of her gown with an unconscious-looking gesture. She wore the dress with ease, the same way she'd wear blue jeans and a blouse, a woman used to formal gatherings and to ceremony.

"Now we all get some sleep," Bruce said, and turned back for the door. "I'll contact you tomorrow morning. Will one of you be at this number?"

"I'll probably sleep right here," Wally said. "Too tired to go home."

Diana watched Wally arrange his raincoat into a pillow. Then she walked over to the closet and pulled out a pillow and blanket. She tossed them to Wally.

"You should go home," Wally said, arranging the pillow, his voice scratchy with tiredness.

"I'll get a cab back to my apartment," said Diana.

"It's very late," said Bruce. "I'll drive you home."

"You don't have to ... " Diana began.

"It's late," Bruce repeated, hoping it didn't sound like he was trying to boss her around.

"He's right," said Wally, muffled as he pulled the blanket up over his head. "Let him drive you home."

"All right, then," she said quietly.

* * *

She'd long since learned to ignore the hollow ache in her chest, to tell herself it meant nothing, that there were things she could live without, that she wasn't still thinking about Bruce's eyes being on her.

She _needed_ to stop thinking about that. There were more important things going on. She twitched her shoulders and rotated her neck.

"Long day?" Bruce said, over the elegant rumble of the car's engine.

Great Hera, was he trying to make small talk?

"Long enough."

"We'll be out of here soon. You and Flash dig up what you can, and I'll figure out the rest."

She bristled. "Thank you. I don't know how we could have done it without you, since we're so very stupid."

"That's not what I meant."

"Yes it was."

He said nothing. She wondered if he'd attempt to apologize again. She wondered if she'd accept if he did.

He didn't apologize. He pulled his car up in front of her building. "I'll see you inside," he told her.

"Don't." She got out and refused to look at him as she went into the building. Her resolve lasted all the way to her apartment, where Audrey had already crawled into bed and was fast asleep. Diana pushed past the two little beds to the window, which overlooked the street. Bruce would still be parked there, waiting, making sure she'd gotten home safe, wanting her to come back down and invite him up, roommate or no roommate, or to return with him to his home. And maybe she would.

She peeked out to the street below. His car was gone.

* * *

Diana woke drenched in sweat, with the dawn slitting through holes in the paper blinds. Audrey still snored softly beside her.

Before getting dressed, she found a few candles, lit them, then knelt at the window. She prayed to Athena to help her remember what she was.

Even in this imaginary but frighteningly solid world, even without her powers, she was still a warrior.

* * *

Daybreak, and Clark was still in the office, reading through back papers. The big headlines caught his attention, and he'd thought about just skimming, but then stories on page ten mentioned Vixen in passing, and he knew if he wasn't complete about this, he would miss something.

The headline from this morning had been about the fire, including quotes from witnesses suggesting it'd been arson. Clark had tried to help Lois write the story, but she'd brushed him off and written it alone. His name attached, not hers.

The arson could be connected to the murder, he thought. However, it could also be something Lois made up since he didn't remember any of the quotes she'd written down, even though he'd been by her side the whole time. Almost the whole time.

Heat distortion, and the feeling of the flames radiating from the building. He was back in the window across from the burning tenement and he couldn't reach the children inside.

Clark set down the paper in his hands --- MAYOR A DRUNK? read the headline on this one from eight months ago --- and went to the real window in the real building, and looked out, trying to breathe and convince himself he was breathing uncharred air.

He wasn't used to being human. Thirty-odd years of pretending, of acting, and now the role of a lifetime was real. How could he be unprepared?

Well, to start with, said an internal voice that sounded a lot like Pa's, he could still believe he ought to be out rescuing people instead of writing about people who did.

"I am Kal-El, the last son of Krypton," he said out loud because he could. If he spoke the words where anyone in this world could hear him, he'd be strapped down and hauled off to the funny farm. Though here, they might try to get a movie deal out of him first.

Had he stayed on Krypton, been raised by his birth parents, grown up there instead, he'd be no more powerful than he was right at this moment. Mongul's cursed gift had shown him that life, spent without a single superpower or world-shaking responsibility. He'd been surrounded by wheat fields, and he'd had a loving family, and ...

Clark shook his head. There was no point dwelling on an old fantasy world, not when he was trapped in a new one. He wondered if he'd have to blow up this world too.

He sat back down and opened the paper again. Scandals, bribes, everything dripped with insinuation and finger-pointing, though not consistently. In this edition, the _Devil_ accused Councilman Zod of taking a bribe in the mass transit case, when not two days later, the paper would trumpet how well it had predicted the charges would be brought against Councilman Ur. Clark's name was on both articles.

He needed to ask Lois about that as soon as she got into the office.

* * *

Wally was being chased by an enormous fly. He yelled and ducked as it tried to land on him to suck out his brains, and if he could just run faster, he could reach the giant can of Raid. But had they invented Raid yet?

He woke up.

The buzzing continued, and his heart leapt into his throat until he shook off enough sleep to realize it wasn't a fly. He sat up, rubbing his head, staring at the slanting daylight through the blinds. Early? Late? Where was he?

More buzzing.

"Yo, West! You in there?"

The voice came from outside, and the buzzing noise was from his doorbell. Buzzer. Whatever. "I'm coming," he said, rolling off the couch and staggering towards the door.

He made his hands work enough to fiddle open the lock. "Yeah?"

There was a kid standing in the hallway, pale and stick-thin, dark hair mussed every which way, holding up a newspaper. "'Bout time you woke up, mister. I was starting to think you weren't in there."

Wally yawned. "What made you think I was?"

The kid shrugged. "I got my ways. Like I know you were chatting up that snotrag Wayne late last night." He shoved the newspaper into Wally's hands.

The anger in his voice at Bruce's name made Wally take another look at the boy. _No way._ "Tim?"

The kid grinned, showing off a set of teeth that had never known the benefits of Wayne Enterprises' dental plan. "Good one, Mr. West. You act like you ain't never seen me before."

_Not without a straitjacket,_ Wally wanted to say. Which wasn't fair, because Wally _had_ seen pictures of Bruce's young partner, most notably the ones on the "Missing Child" posters. "I'm still half asleep. Sorry, kid."

"Ain't no problem," said Tim. "You want me to get you some coffee? I got no place to be."

"No, thanks. You run along."

Tim just stood there, staring at him, giving a little cough. "You forget something, Mr. West?"

"Um." Wally thought fast. "Yeah, let me get you a dime for the paper. Hold on."

"The paper." Tim stared at him like he was stupid. "Yeah."

Wally ducked back into his office and rummaged in his desk until he found a dime. "Here you go, kid. Don't spend it all in one place."

Tim looked at the dime in his palm and then up at Wally again. "So," he said like he was exploring a brand new option, "you _do_ want me blabbing that Wayne was here last night?"

Blabbing? "Tim, if you go to the police ... " He would what, exactly? Explain Bruce was his old superhero pal?

Tim laughed. "You really are still asleep, you bird brain, if you think I'm gonna turn stoolie for the cops."

Wally dug in his pocket and found a five dollar bill. _Last of the cab money. Hope Diana has some._ "Is that better?"

Tim looked at the money, then darted out and grabbed it, stuffing the bill into a grubby pocket. "Yeah. That'll do. Pleasure doin' business with you, Mr. West. You tell Mr. Queen when you see him that Timmy the Shoeshine Boy says you're all right."

"I'll do that."

After he closed the door, Wally sat down with his five dollar newspaper. Supes wrote an article on page one about a big fire somewhere. The opening of Vixen's last movie had been greeted with cheers, and panned by the critics. Wally turned to find the funnies.

A note fell out of the paper.

_The Parrot. 8 am. You and the dame._ No names, but Tim had said "Mr. Queen," and the location would fit. Maybe Ollie'd had a change of heart and wanted to share some information about the murder.

* * *

"Why don't you have a car?" Diana asked, as she paid the cab driver.

Wally shrugged. "No idea, babe. Probably it got repossessed, like that guy's in SUNSET BOULEVARD."

When they stepped into The Emerald Parrot, the air seemed wrong. For one thing, there were no bodyguards at the entrance, and for another, the door was open a few inches. It opened soundlessly under Diana's touch. She walked in first, which wasn't planned on her part, but instinct.

The silence of the place, the way the sunlight slanted in through the doors before they banged softly shut behind them, made her think of the peace of a tomb. Considering what the place had been like the last time they'd seen it, the quiet was particularly unnatural.

So she was the first to go down the steps into the main ballroom. Diana reached behind her to grab Wally's arm. "Stop," she commanded in a low voice.

He did. "What ... " Wally's voice trailed away.

Pale sunlight gleamed from the narrow windows nestled near the ceiling on one wall of the ballroom. The lights were off, so the room was half-lit without deep shadows; the high-gloss dance floor looked dull.

The blood, however, had a dim shine to it.

"Oh my God," Wally said softly.

Oliver Queen was dead, lying on his side with his eyes wide open, the blood staining his chest and spread around him on the dance floor. Curled up next to him was the ordinary-looking bodyguard with sandy hair.

"I know it's not really them, I know it's not but ... hell. Ollie. James."

"We have to call the police," Diana said, her voice schooled into calmness. It was the voice she used when she was nervous at official gatherings, when she sensed the audience might be resistant to her speech. "But first we should note down everything we can about the crime scene. Don't touch anything."

"Hey, that's my line," Wally said. His soft chuckle sounded like a bad parody of himself. He pulled out his notebook and pencil, then began to write.

Diana walked around the perimeter of the area, along the edge of the dance floor. There didn't seem to anyone else dead, and there didn't seem to be anyone else in the ballroom. Whoever Oliver's killer was, they were either gone, or hiding somewhere upstairs.

"How long ago would you say they were killed?" Diana asked, pausing in front of the stage.

"Maybe an hour, forty-five minutes." Wally looked up from where he crouched by Ollie's body. "Looks like machine-gun fire. Got him full on. They either burst in and took him by surprise, or it was someone he knew. But it's kind of hard to conceal a machine gun so my guess it's the first. James must have tried to protect him. There's money and a metal lock box on the table so my guess is Ollie was counting all his money with his bodyguard for protection when it happened." He stood up and started to pace. "It's so weird. Like being in a movie, only we can't leave." Wally stopped in front of Diana, with the microphone between them. "What if...what if one of _us_ gets killed. What happens?"

"Once the murder is solved, we come home with everyone else," Diana said firmly.

"That's not really what I meant." But Wally wouldn't tell her what he meant.

She didn't need him to, anyway; she understood. He meant what it would _feel_ like if one of them --- one of the "real" players in this game --- got killed. Diana hugged her arms.

Something gleamed in the dance floor. She knelt down and picked up a necklace. It was a pendant, a sterling silver question mark. Diana held it up so Wally could see.

"Riddler?" Wally said. He held out his hand and Diana dropped the necklace into his palm. "We should give it to the police."

"Let's go call them from Ollie's office," she said.

"Killer might still be here," said Wally.

"Then we'll be careful," Diana said.

"No." Wally took her elbow. "We'll go out and find a pay phone."

Diana blinked, then felt stupid. "Yes. Of course."

As if everything else weren't bizarre enough, Wally was the one with the most common sense.

* * *

"In it up to your eyeballs, huh, West?" Harvey Bullock took off his policeman's hat, scratched his head, and put the hat back on. "Not that I'm surprised or nothin'. Always knew you were a bad egg."

"Take it easy, Harvey." Hal Jordan sat down in the chair next to Diana's.

Cops were busy in the ballroom of The Blue Parrot, gathering up evidence. Flashbulbs popped. The cameras belonged to the LDPD, not the press; so far the press hadn't managed to get in there yet. Tape marred the shiny dance floor, marking where the bodies had been.

Wally looked down at the pristine white tablecloth, the wilted carnations in the vase, and thought how wrong it seemed, the elegance next to a murder scene. He glanced over at Diana. She looked tired, and he'd hardly ever seen her tired, not like this, with shadows under her eyes.

"So tell us, Wally, what you were two doing here so early?" Officer Jordan pulled out his notebook and flipped the little pad open. He slid the small pencil out of its loop, licked the lead, and waited, poised to write.

"We're investigating the Macabe murder," Wally said.

"A little birdie told us yous two were here last night," Bullock smiled, pleased with himself. "What were you doing, West?" The heavyset man leaned over Wally, and Wally pulled away until his back hit Diana's shoulder.

"Investigating the Macabe murder," Wally said again. "Are you deaf?"

"Don't get smart with me, laughing boy."

"Hey, Harvey, he was one of our own, you don't have to..."

"Shut up, Jordan." One fist slammed down onto the table. "I've had it up to here with scum like him crawlin' all over the city. Too gutless to be a big time crook. They just raise the level of the stench."

"I'm not a crook," Wally said, feeling stupid as soon as he said it. Why on earth would he need to justify himself to Harvey Bullock --- the book world's Harvey Bullock? He wasn't a real Harvey Bullock, who, the way Bruce talked about him, was a pain in the ass but an honest cop, a decent guy underneath the roughness. Bruce said once that heroes like them needed pains in the ass like Harvey Bullock or everything would fall apart.

"You used to have dealings with Queen, gumshoe?" Bullock pressed on.

"That's ancient history. I'm clean now." Wally held out his hands.

"We don't know anything." Diana leaned her elbow on the table and rubbed her eyes. "We came here last night to check out a lead. Mr. West thought we should come up this morning for a follow up."

Bullock's eyes narrowed. "Why would a cupcake like you be hanging around with him? Aren't you in the moving picture biz or something?"

"She works for me. She's my ... " Wally almost said "secretary" and then at the last second said "Assistant," instead.

"Ain't that quaint. Your assistant." Bullock belched. "Damn. Last time I eat in that diner."

"You're a slob, Bullock," Jordan said calmly. "Wally, just tell us the truth. What were you doing here?"

"I told you the truth."

"You still pack a heater?" Jordan licked his pencil again, cocked his head to one side, and gave Wally a stare that suddenly made him like Jordan less than he had a minute ago.

"He's a private dick," Diana snapped. "He needs to carry a gun."

Wally turned and looked at Diana who shrugged, a telegraphed _What, I can't learn a new language?_

Jordan wrote that down. "Are you carrying your weapon now?" He asked.

"No," said Wally.

"I'll search him," said Bullock, lumbering forward.

"Hold on." Wally stood up. So did Diana.

"You and me go way back, Wally. I can help you, but you've got to cooperate."

"I say we arrest 'em now, get it over with. This is a complete waste of time. Where are you goin', toots?" Bullock grabbed Diana's arm as she moved.

"Let go of me," she said, her teeth clenched.

"Aw, are you going to assault me? I'm terrified."

"Let go of her, Harvey," Jordan said reasonably.

"Uh ... You probably should," Wally said.

Diana gave Bullock a freezing glare.

"We can continue this down at the station. Wally, you'll have to turn over your gun. We can stop at your office on the way."

"Officer Bullock, Officer Jordan!" An authoritative voice cut across the busy room. Cops paused in their work to see who it was.

It took Wally a moment to get oriented as Harvey Dent strode towards them, dressed in an expensive-looking muted gray pinstripe suit, a trenchcoat and of course, a fedora. He'd seen Dent's picture hundreds of times, both before and after Two-Face, and it seemed strange to see him in person with his whole face being Harvey Dent.

"Mr. West." Dent stuck out his hand for Wally to shake and then, to his surprise, did the same for Diana. "Who's this?"

Most men barely acknowledged her presence, or took her hand to kiss it, or looked her over like a piece of meat in the butcher window. Wally knew it infuriated Diana. He was getting tired of watching it himself. She didn't need him to fight her battles for him but still, he couldn't guarantee he wouldn't punch somebody if it kept up.

"My assistant, Diana Prince," Wally said.

"Charmed, I'm sure," said Dent. "What's going on here, Jordan?"

"We were just going to take them down to the station for further questioning, sir. After we picked up Mr. West's firearm from his office."

"You think they did it? Why?" Dent asked.

"They were here last night, and they came back this morning. They were the ones who found the bodies and called this in."

Dent let out a long breath. "Why would they stay around for the police if they were the ones who had killed Oliver Queen and his bodyguard?"

"It'd be a clever plan," Bullock said, with less certainty that before.

"What kind of gun killed them?" Dent said.

"From the perforation? Tommy gun."

"Ah." Dent examined the perfectly manicured fingernails on his left hand a second, then looked back up at Bullock and Jordan. "Mr. West is a former cop, yes?"

"Yeah," Jordan said, slow.

"He probably carries a firearm similar to what he carried on the force. Just being used to the action and all that. It seems highly unlikely that firearm would be a submachine gun. Unless the LDPD has started issuing submachine guns for daily use?" Dent gave a half-smile. "Did you find one on him? On Miss Prince?"

"No," said Bullock, glaring at them both as though they were at fault for not carrying Thompsons when he'd arrived on the scene.

Hal Jordan flipped over his notes. "But he and Miss Prince said they talked to Oliver Queen last night."

"What were you doing here last night?" Dent turned to Diana and Wally.

"We're investigating the Macabe murder."

"Who hired you to do that?"

Wally's throat went dry, but Diana said immediately, "Bruce Wayne. He was worried he'd be implicated and hired us to find out who did it."

"Bruce, huh?" Dent folded his arms. "That's convenient, isn't it? Both of you in his employ to prove he didn't do it?"

"Yeah, how do we know you two aren't doctoring evidence all over town to protect your employer?" Jordan's eyes narrowed.

"Because I don't doctor evidence," Wally said. "We're only trying to find out the truth before more people are killed."

"All right West, you can go." Dent waved his arm. "I know where to find you if we have more questions. And don't leave town, as the old saying goes."

"What? You're just letting these mooks go?"

Harvey Dent looked down at Bullock. "Are you objecting, officer?"

Bullock said nothing.

"I thought so," said Dent. "Letting old grudges guide you in your work, Harvey? That's beneath you."

Wally took Diana's arm and they walked briskly away from the crime scene. Diana's heels tapped sharply on the steps, and then they pushed through the doors out into the morning, where the sun was burning away the fog.

* * *

To Be Continued 


	7. Chapter 6

* * *

Chapter Six

* * *

Bruce arrived at the diner first. He'd taken a cab, trying to be as unobtrusive as possible, and as an added precaution, combed his hair differently and wore glasses. 

It wasn't much of a disguise but hey, if it worked for Kent all those years, it was worth a try.

At home Bruce Wayne was a familiar face in Gotham, and he could go out without being approached, except by the more rabid breed of reporters. Some people who benefitted from his charities ---neighborhood people --- might wave or greet him but kept the respectful distance people had for a man they thought was busy and important. There was a diner he liked to go to occasionally for pancakes; sometimes he went alone and sometimes Dick, Babs, and Tim were with him. The waitresses knew him by name and the cook knew he liked his bacon practically charred.

But here, it might be different. It seemed he was as well known as a Louie B. Mayer or a David O. Selznick, and Bruce wasn't looking forward to eager young starlets following him or trying to do an on-the-spot audition.

He sat in a booth, ordered coffee, and stared out through the windows. The early morning sun was just beginning to burn away the morning fog and the dampness of the night as the city came to life. A few cars went by, harbingers of the thicker traffic to come. It seemed strange to see palm trees. This city, like Gotham, had dark shadows but when it was bright, it was brighter than Gotham, and he felt out of place. Everything in Los Diablos seemed to be for show; even the architecture of the most run-down neighborhoods had arches, scalloped roofs, patios, grace notes. Gotham just was. A front stoop, a grocery store, an office building; it didn't feel like a movie set. Los Diablos and Gotham, however, had other things in common. Poverty nestled up next to luxury with casual neglect, and no one seemed to take notice.

The waitress, a redhead, brought him his coffee. Her hair was neatly combed and her uniform starched. He noted the diamond ring on her finger, the smoothness of her hands. This was something new to her.

"Thank you, Veronica," he said.

She assumed he'd read her name tag, and smiled without it reaching her eyes, then walked off to help another customer.

If all this was out of his head, he wondered why his mind would want to see Ronnie Vreeland down on her luck. Maybe because some part of him always saw her as the nice girl next door, wanted to see her away from the society parties and the glamour and distractions, figure out what she was like when she had to just be.

The coffee was hot, good, and fresh. He didn't add sugar or milk to it and barely wondered how the movie mogul usually took his. Possibly with a shot of something hard added to start the day.

The bell over the diner door jangled, the blinds covering the door window rattled, and Diana entered, Wally behind her. She was dressed in a simple skirt and jacket, shoes with moderate heels, her hair caught at the base of her neck in a snood. Spotting him, she lifted her hand in greeting, then yawned and used the hand to delicately cover her mouth.

Wally sat down next to Diana in the booth and grabbed a menu from the holder. "Ooooh, hey, buttermilk pancakes with fresh blueberries."

"How did things go with the police?"

"We told them what we saw at the club. It started to go kind of badly. I think they thought we killed Ollie." Wally's stomach growled. "But then someone you might be familiar with stepped in. Harvey Dent. Seems like he's a good guy here." The waitress came over. "I'll have the number four special, with two sides of hash browns," Wally said, while Ronnie jotted it down on her pad.

"Anything for you?"

"Toast and coffee please," Diana said.

Ronnie left them.

Wally fidgeted with the spoon in the sugar bowl, while Bruce indulged himself with the idea of a whole Harvey on the side of justice. "Now tell me what you saw."

"Here." Diana reached into her pocket and pulled out several sheets of paper folded together.

Bruce looked through the papers, which were pages of lists interpersed with full paragraphs. He skimmed some of the text, which turned out to be theories based on the list of facts. There was also a list of suspects, with their own names at the top of the list.

"You'll find a detailed report of our findings at the club on page three," said Wally. He grimaced. "Please don't make me tell it again."

"You two put this together?"

"We've been working on it since yesterday morning, and we added The Emerald Parrot stuff early this morning." The spoon clicked against the edge of the sugar bowl.

"Nice work," Bruce said, folding the pages and handed it back to them.

"Don't you want to keep them?" Wally looked across at him in surprise.

"No, they're yours."

The expression on Wally's face reminded Bruce achingly of Tim or Dick, when they'd done something well on one of those rare occasions when he felt they could handle praise.

Diana, as he'd expected, genuinely seemed not to have noticed anything out of the ordinary. She was accustomed to praise, though not from him.

Ronnie returned with Wally's pancakes and Diana's toast and coffee.

Wally poured maple syrup all over the pancakes. "We don't really have any theories yet about who killed Ollie," Wally said with his mouth full. "It looks like it was a surprise attack, but it could have been someone he knew. Any number of people in Los Diablos would want him dead. He _is_ the top mob boss."

"Or it could have been a political opponent," Diana said, spreading butter evenly on her toast, neatly including the corners. "The politics in Los Diablos are deeply corrupt. Our next step is to compile a list of politicians who might have their eye on the mayor's office, or who would have reason to want Oliver Queen out and someone else in."

"Guess who the Deputy Mayor is?" Wally grinned.

Bruce sighed. "Yes. I know. Luthor."

"Can I tell Clark? Please? Can I, huh?"

"I'm sure he's figured it out already, Wally. He is a reporter."

"Oh. Yeah. Anyway Lex seems like he has a low profile here. Maybe in Los Diablos he's not a bad guy."

"Uh-oh," Wally said, and put down his fork.

"What?" Diana's eyes widened.

Wally reached into his pocket and pulled out the necklace. "What with all the interrogating, we forgot to show this to the police."

"Kind of a large clue to forget about," Bruce said, hearing the rebuke creep into his own voice.

"Like I said, they were interrogating us, and Bullock got kind of rough and then Dent showed up and ... "

"Either one of us should have remembered," Diana said.

"Never mind. Somehow I don't have much faith in the LDPD to solve this anyway. Keep the necklace somewhere safe. I'll try to find out the whereabouts of this world's Edward Nygma."

* * *

Lois was already hard at work when Clark arrived back from breakfast. He'd had trouble finding an open café, so it'd taken longer than he'd expected. 

"Morning, Lois," he said, as he threw his jacket over his chair.

"About time you got here," she said, still typing. "Where were you last night?"

"Out." It was the safest answer. If he'd told her he'd been here all night, she'd ask him why.

"Perry's madder than a wet hen." Her fingers clacked on the keys. "The Mayor got whacked last night."

"What?!"

She let out a disgusted sigh, pulled out her sheet of paper, and shoved it at him, then scrolled a new page into the typewriter.

Clark read:

"_**MAYOR QUEEN MURDERED!!!!** _

"Article by Clark Kent, Daily Devil staff reporter

"Late last night, local police discovered a terrible sight: Mayor Oliver Queen was shot dead inside the Emerald Parrot nightclub. Queen, formerly known as mobster "Ollie the Arrow," was found beside the body of his bodyguard James Jesse, both riddled with bullets. Local has-been private eye Wally West and his secretary were arrested at the scene for the crime."

"Uh oh," Clark said to himself.

_"After hours of intense interrogation, the suspects were set free on their own recognizance, according to bleeding-heart District Attorney Harvey Dent. Meanwhile, as Queen's body lay cooling in a pool of his own red blood, the inept LDPD scored the scene for clues."_

"You misspelled 'scoured.'"

"Thanks."

There was more, though Lois had clearly used her imagination and her thesaurus. "Why do you keep signing my name to your work?" He wasn't sure if it bothered him more getting the credit for her work, or that the work was so bad.

Lois looked at him with an expression of deepest distaste but didn't answer at first. When she saw the honest confusion on his face (he hoped) she sighed. "Been drinking again, Kent? You always get your crusader panties in a twist after a few shots of Johnnie Walker."

"Let's go with a 'yes' on that."

"Don't tell Perry. He'll explode. You can go sleep it off after we check out the nightclub." She finished the article, made the spelling correction in red, and then ran it down to Typesetting. Clark waited until she came back, and together, they drove towards the club.

"'Crusader panties?'" he asked as he drove.

"You heard me. A couple of drinks, and you're all 'Dames should have equal rights' and 'No more separate drinking fountains.' Sometimes I swear you'd put on a pair of red, white and blue briefs and go try to save the world. Then you sober up." She looked out the window away from him.

"You like me when I've been drinking."

"Don't get schmaltzy, Kent. I don't like you, period. You're just less of a creep when you're drunk."

Police surrounded the club, flurrying in and out like bees and giving the appearance of being just as busy. The line was set up halfway across the street, and no one was allowed inside without a badge.

"Get a shot of the exterior," Lois said, giving up. "It's something."

Clark obediently took his camera over to the far side of the street for a better angle, while Lois tried charming the cops. As he set up the shot, he got a good look around the street. A few restaurants, a jewelry store, and a bank huddled around the club. In his own world, the bank would have had a convenient security camera spying outside. But video cameras were expensive, and ATMs wouldn't come along for decades.

He clicked a few photographs, and then with a glance to make sure Lois was still busy hunting down quotes, he went into the bank. The guard on-duty looked just like Rudy Jones, and Clark gave a mental shrug as he went over to him. "Excuse me?"

"Yeah?"

"Did your bank have a guard on duty last night?"

"That was me. You don't look like a cop. They already asked me questions, and now I gotta stay the rest of the day because Sam called in sick. That ain't fair."

"No, it's not. So I suppose you didn't see or hear anything?"

"Naw. I was in the back." He didn't say he was sleeping. He didn't have to. Clark was having a bad day, and needled him anyway.

"I'm surprised a keen man like yourself didn't hear gunfire."

"Yeah. Well." Rudy rubbed the back of his neck. "My hearing's never been so good." He wouldn't meet Clark's eyes. Asleep for sure. Or else ...

"What's your salary, Rudy?"

"None of your beeswax, mister. And how did you know my name?"

"I asked the cops outside." It was a bad lie, but Rudy had never been very bright. He started looking uncomfortable. Clark took him by the arm and walked him towards the wall, and Rudy went. "Look, Rudy, I'm not with the police, and more importantly for your sake, I'm not with the mob either. I'm just trying to figure out who did this. Now if someone happened to hand you a little extra cash in exchange for your not hearing anything, I just want his name."

"I don't know nothin'."

Clark sighed deeply. "Then I'm afraid I'll have to tell my friends who also have an interest in this case that you're not being forthcoming. I'm sure they can find something that will jog your memory."

Rudy's eyes had gotten bigger as Clark had spoken. Clark hated this. It was something Bruce would do: convince the witness he knew more and that he'd consider not breaking any legs if he got the information he requested.

"I don't know nothin'!" he repeated in a hoarse whisper. "I never got a name. Just a note and some cash. My sister's been sick. We need the dough. All I did was walk around the block for ten minutes when the note said to, I swear."

"Can you give me the note?" If they could get fingerprints, handwriting identity, anything, they'd be in business.

Rudy shot that down fast. "You kiddin'? Hang onto a piece of paper that said I'd be goofing off at work? I'd get fired."

_Drat._ "Rudy, if Queen's people find out you helped get him killed, getting fired will sound like a trip to the zoo in comparison with what they'll do to you."

Rudy shivered. Clark almost felt sorry for him. Parasite was a two-bit crook in his soul, who'd accidentally managed to find a million dollar superpower. In this world, he'd stay petty and die poor.

"Go visit your sister, Rudy. Pack her up and take her someplace warm. Mexico's nice this time of year." Rudy nodded.

Outside, Lois fumed at him. "I finally get a quote from the Commissioner, I go to look for you, and you're where, exactly?"

"Following a lead."

"You better tell me you caught the killer red-handed."

"Sorry." But now he knew Ollie's murder had been planned in advance. It might not be useful information, but he filed it away for later.

* * *

"Will you need anything else, Mr. Jones?" The clerk at the attorney's office was young and eager to please, and J'onn recognized him as a young man he'd encountered in Pennsylvania during his journey to find his place in the world. 

"No. Thank you, Thomas," he said, and then, "Although perhaps if you had a spare desk where I could sit?"

"Sure, Mr. Jones." Thomas led him back to an empty desk in the office. "If there's anything else you need, just give a shout."

"My thanks again." The youth walked away.

J'onn turned back to his stack of papers. He'd managed to see some of Vixen's less important documents yesterday, but the attorney was the only one who knew the combination for the safe where the truly vital papers were kept, and he had been away on business until late last night. Although Vixen's will had been his first priority this morning, he was allowing J'onn to take a look, as a favor to Mr. Stewart.

_Last Will and Testament of Mari Jiwe Macabe._

J'onn wasn't a lawyer, nor an accountant for that matter, and had to translate the strange legal language into plain English, and then into Martian. A few items were named as separate from the estate: a few pieces of jewelry (Diana would inherit a brooch), the rights to the residuals from two of her movies (her agent would inherit one, Batman the other), a small sum to her agent and to J'onn, and a sizeable donation to a children's home. J'onn made careful notes of each of these; for all he knew, someone had murdered her for a pair of diamond earrings.

The rest of the estate went to her husband, and to any children the two might have, although to J'onn's knowledge, there were none. She had included a codicil that stated, should her husband have any offspring by another woman, his inheritance would be voided, and the bulk of her estate would be given to Vixen's own offspring if any, and otherwise the children's home.

This put the burden of suspicion back on Green Lantern. J'onn muttered a swear word in his own language even as he wrote everything down.

"Sorry?" said Thomas, walking by.

"Nothing." J'onn also took note of the date on which the will had last been updated. If he was clear on the current date, this version was less than two months old, though he had no idea what had been changed from the previous one.

The bell rang up front, just as J'onn was about to hand the papers back to the clerk. Thomas dashed up front to answer it.

J'onn looked at the will again, and then placed it back inside its folder. He would return it to the safe himself. As he set the folder back in place, he was overtaken by curiosity, and he peered through the other files until he found a familiar name. While Thomas was occupied, he opened the folder and glanced at the will inside. The format was the same, with different names attached, which told him this attorney doubtless had a standard will drawn up for most of his clients. Also recent. J'onn made another note.

He placed the file back into the folder, and waved good-bye to Thomas as he left.

* * *

"Sir, Mr. Jones has arrived to see you. He says it is most urgent." 

"Show him in," Bruce said, closing his book. His library included dozens of pulp detective novels, and he'd decided to skim them to see if he could glean anything useful from the medium itself. Thus far, they were as helpful as Flash.

Alfred shut the study door behind J'onn, who looked agitated.

"What did you find out?"

"Vixen changed her will recently. I cannot say for certain what the addition was, but I did notice a codicil wherein John Stewart would lose his inheritance should he have a child with another woman."

"So she probably knew about his affair." Bruce sat forward, thinking. "But she didn't write him out of her will. Interesting."

"Perhaps they had reconciled. We believe he was unfaithful to her, but we cannot assume he'd not gone back to her."

"And she forgave him, but added a note to keep him on the straight and narrow," said Bruce.

"I also saw your will. You have the same attorney. A Mr. Fox?"

"Go on."

"In this world, Richard Grayson is your half-brother." Bruce's mouth quirked. That was a good description of Dick, really. "Timothy Drake is your illegitimate son."

Bruce went cold. "Tim's here?"

"Flash and Diana encountered him yesterday," J'onn admitted. "He is ... whole. We thought perhaps you shouldn't ..."

"Tell me where he is."

"Batman," J'onn said. "This is not your Tim. This is a simulacrum out of your own mind." He placed a hand on Bruce's arm. "Considering your recent trauma, I don't think it's a good idea that you see him."

"J'onn, if you stand in my way from seeing him, I swear I will test the theory that none of us can really die here."

J'onn raised an eyebrow and dropped his hand. "When we have found the killer and left this place, I would like to see you for a chat."

"Not likely," Bruce said, but he gave a tight smile anyway. His mind was racing, and yes, his heart too. Whole, J'onn had said. Not quivering in his room under sedation, for fear that if he started laughing he'd never stop. Not wincing at every trace of the colors purple and green, until Bruce and Alfred had gone through the entire Manor and taken down anything with those colors, throwing out plants and covering pictures, and ensuring corn and carrots were the only vegetables ever served at the table.

Just a few minutes. All he wanted was a few minutes of the old Tim, smiling without a rictus, alive without wounds that went too deep for Leslie to patch.

J'onn couldn't read his mind, but maybe he didn't have to. He wrote down an address. "He lives with his mother."

"Talia, Selina or Andrea?"

J'onn smirked. "Selina."

"J'onn?" Bruce said, as J'onn opened the study door. Alfred stood right outside, waiting to escort him out.

"Yes?"

"Thank you."

J'onn nodded. "Afterwards. Chat."

* * *

His batsuit wasn't here, and half the materials he used in it hadn't even been invented yet, so he wasn't eager to try to construct another one, although he could if he had to. 

As in the real world, Bruce Wayne was a liability, a hindrance. There were places he couldn't go, people who wouldn't talk to him. He stood out. Bruce glanced at the white tuxedo on the bed, waiting for Alfred to gather it up, to clean it, steam it, put away. That was a uniform as much as the other.

But there was more than one way to do what needed to be done. Unlike with the batsuit, the materials he needed were readily available in this world.

Bruce looked at himself in the tall, gilt-edged mirror, at the dark suit and tie that was of good quality but not too good, expensive rather than well-made. He'd applied the putty to his face to change the shape of his nose and line of his jaw, and oil to his hair to change the way it parted, and then he'd affixed the mustache to his upper lip. A face both familiar and unfamiliar looked back at him from the mirror. He relaxed his shoulders, standing the way this other man would stand, then rotated his jaw a few times, remembering the way this other voice would feel on his tongue.

There were places Matches could go Bruce Wayne couldn't, people who would talk to him when they wouldn't talk to someone like Bruce Wayne.

One of them was Bruce's son.

* * *

J'onn sat in his vehicle for several minutes afterwards, looking over his notes. The case was coming together, though he didn't like the shape it made. None of them were responsible for Queen's murder, he felt certain. Occam's Razor suggested there was only one murderer, rather than two, so that exonerated the seven of them, although only to themselves. 

Unfortunately, the paperwork trail he'd been able to discern thus far led back to them more strongly than ever. Lantern stood to inherit a fortune, so long as he never had a child with Shayera. That was surely an outgrowth of the information from the future, which Lantern had shared with both women not long ago. J'onn himself would inherit a tidy amount, on top of the money he had stolen from her, as did Bruce and her agent.

J'onn made a note to investigate the agent. Better, he would tell Flash to do so. Flash was the one who had to solve the case, after all.

He sighed and put his notes away, then once again attempted to drive this strange vehicle. He was getting better, but it was not like the automobiles he'd learned on, and he had no knowing mind from which to draw the necessary information.

A mile down the road, there was another car across the road, doors open and headlights on. J'onn slowed and stopped, then got out of his vehicle in order to see if something was wrong with the driver.

He felt the blow to his head, heard a deafening crunch, and he fell to his knees, stunned. His assailant loomed over him, and J'onn's eyes widened in recognition just before the final, killing strike.

* * *

To be continued... 


	8. Chapter 7

* * *

Chapter Seven

* * *

Bruce checked the address as he looked up at the building. "Tenement" would be a better word, and "semi-permanent building code violation" would be just about dead on in description. He walked up the stairs as Matches would, the cocky yet shambling walk that told the world to leave him alone. Broken toys and trash littered the sides of the dark stairway. He recognized the smells of ground-in cigarette smoke and poor sanitation, with an overlay of bacon grease, and almost on cue as he thought one should, a baby began crying from somewhere out of sight. Another child joined in, and was silenced with a shout. 

Selina and Tim lived on the third floor. He rapped on their door, his speech prepared.

No one answered. He waited for about a minute, then knocked louder.

"I'm coming! Hold your horses!" Selina.

Sure enough, the door creaked open, and Selina was there, wearing a nightgown and yawning. She looked him up and down, and then said, "Nobody before noon."

"Is your son home?"

"TIM!" she yelled. No answer. "He's out. Out shining shoes like a good boy already."

Bruce had his doubts. "Name's Malone. I got a job for him. Money up front, easy work for a good boy."

Her eyes narrowed. "You ain't some perv, are ya? My boy ain't into that. You'll want the Todd kid downstairs."

Bruce was never going to ask where that particular detail had come from, because he knew he would never want to know the answer. "Nothing like that, ma'am. I need him to carry some things for me."

"What kinds of things?" She stood back, appraising him, and he affected to slump his shoulders a little more. "Wait, do I know you? Ain't you that guy from Warriors?"

"I been there once or twice," he hedged.

"Anyway," said Selina, "he's gonna be busy the next couple of days. He worked for the Mayor, my Timmy did, and he's got to see if he's still got a job now that Queen got whacked."

Tim worked for the Ollie? "Y'know," said Bruce. "I heard the Mayor was into some shady stuff."

Selina looked at him strangely, then barked a laugh at him that turned into a cough. "You ain't so bright, are you, Malone?"

Bruce let himself grin. "No one ever blamed me for bein' too smart, nope."

"But you're kinda cute," she said, a slow smile spreading over her face. "And you did give me a good laugh. Tell you what, you come on in and show me some of that money you want to give my boy, and I'll give you a good time." On her, he smelled last night's perfume and a lot of old liquor.

He held up his hands. "Not right now, lady. Business."

"I got my own business to run," she sniffed. "You sure you don't wanna go see the Todd kid after all? He gives me a dollar every time I send him a john, and I give him one when he sends 'em to me."

"Really can't. But maybe I'll call next week."

She laughed again, as he hurried from her door. "Good one, mister." She slammed the door.

As he walked down the stairs, Bruce wondered how Tim had come to be, if he really was their child in this strange world. Had this Bruce Wayne rented Selina's company for an evening? If so, he'd hardly take her word for it that the kid was his. But he'd mentioned the boy in his will.

At the outside door, a small form barreled into him, knocking the wind out of him.

"Hey! Watch where yer goin!" said the form, and it was Tim. Of course it was Tim.

"Sorry. Hey, are you Tim Drake?"

"Who wants to know?" Tim had puffed himself up with pride and aggressiveness. Bruce's heart ached.

"Malone. Call me Matches." Bruce knew this role, had played this game any number of times, but his mouth was dry. "I got a job for you. Pays good." He flashed a little cash. Tim's eyes got big and greedy.

"I'm listenin'."

"I got some items I need carried across town. You carry them, I give you a little scratch."

"Who you workin' for?"

"Just myself. Independent agent."

"No such thing," Tim said. "Not in L.D. What, you got guys gonna jump me at the end? I ain't talkin' about Mister Grayson's business for anybody."

Bruce handed Tim ten dollars. "Is Mister Grayson your boss?"

"He gets me jobs, yeah. Never you mind what."

"I ain't askin'."

"I just shine shoes, mister. Timmy the Shoeshine Boy, that's me."

"Mister Grayson likes his shiny shoes?"

"Shiniest ones in town," said Tim. "Hey, you say you got cash?"

Bruce flicked a glance around his perimeter to make sure Tim wasn't setting him up for a robbery. "Enough."

Tim cracked a grin. "My ma's right upstairs. I can wake her up. You'd like her. All the guys do."

_This isn't Tim. This isn't Selina._ "Maybe next time, kid. You in or out?"

"Tell me what you want carried and I'll think about it."

_Or you'll go tell Dick about the new guy in town._ "Ain't nothin' you need to worry about for a c-note, kid." Again the greed shone on his face. "There's a pancake place not far from here. Be there tonight around seven. I'll even buy you dinner." Bruce pulled out another ten. "To help you decide."

Tim snatched it from his hand. "Okay. Maybe I'll be there. But no funny stuff." He paused. "You know, there's this Todd guy who lives on the second floor ... "

"Not my type," Bruce said. "Seven o'clock, kid." Then he walked out even though he wanted to stay and grab the boy and hug him and tell him he was sorry, but that would be out of character for any of him.

* * *

Against his better judgement, John was going through the closet, searching for anything unusual. Maybe Mari had kept a diary, or had hidden old love letters, or something. He'd searched the attics already, found a lot of old clothes slowly decaying, and a ton of happy, fat moths. 

The best part about having been up in the attic had been avoiding the staff. Too strange, seeing those faces waiting for orders from him for meals and directions. This place was getting to him: too big and too empty of any other real people. It was like living with ghosts.

"Mr. Stewart?"

John glanced around. "What?"

Mason said, "The police called." That was another thing. He wasn't supposed to answer his own telephone, or his own door. Bad enough that when he and Mari went anywhere public, she had a driver to take them there. Here, the people who looked like Mace and Sapphire and Kat waited on him until he yelled at them to go away. Next thing he knew, they'd be wiping his mouth for him, or worse.

"Tell me they've found something."

"In a way, sir. They found Mr. Jones. I'm afraid he's dead, sir." Mace said it in a detached voice, like he was relaying a stock quote. _Insane Situations on the rise today, Martians dropping sharply._

"What? That can't be right."

"I'm very sorry, sir. They said it was a car accident. He crashed into a tree. Would you like me to order some flowers to be sent to the widow?"

"Sure," said John, mouth on autopilot. Pretend flowers for a pretend wife in a pretend story. If Zatanna was right, J'onn would be "reset" along with the rest of them if they made it through the plot to the end. She hadn't said anything about what would happen if they all died in the story, but John had a bad feeling. "Do you know if they called anyone else?"

"The officer on the phone said they'd tried to contact his wife, but couldn't locate her. That's why they called here. They'd like you to do the official identification of the body."

John nodded. "Just tell me where to go." He paused. "And I need you to call some people for me to tell them. Bruce Wayne. Clark Kent. Diana -- " What was her last name again?

"Miss Prince?"

"That's her. And Wally West, too. Do you have their numbers?"

"I can find them."

"Good. Tell them to meet me. Where am I going?"

"They'd like you at the accident site. It's not far from Mr. Wayne's residence. I've given the directions to Guy already."

"Right. Have them meet me there. But first, call Miss Hol. Tell her I'll be at her house in five minutes to pick her up." He ignored the expression that crossed Mason's face; he'd seen that look when they'd gone on leave together a few times, and never mind the fact that John had usually been the one dragging Rex's butt home later.

She was standing outside her house waiting as they pulled up. Guy got out to open the door for her, and then she was in the back with John, radiating worry.

"He's not really ... "

John held up his finger to his lips and tilted his head towards Guy. Shayera nodded, and looked out the window.

"I can't believe he's gone," she said carefully.

"Me, either."

"Did they tell you anything?"

He shrugged. "An accident, they think. Keep an eye out, though. I'm betting someone tries to call it suicide, and blame the other deaths on him."

"J'onn wouldn't kill himself."

"You and I know that. We'll see if someone tries to fake a note."

Unable to say more, they descended into silence. Was Guy used to picking Shayera up at her place? Maybe not; she did have that car. He glanced over to her, taking in the dress she wore and the scarf over her hair. Despite not knowing anything about this time period, she looked a natural fit.

"How's your back?" he asked her after a few miles.

"I'm getting used to it. Haven't been thinking much about them. It, I mean."

He smirked. "That little house of yours must be pretty distracting if you're not thinking about it."

"Can we not talk right now?"

John saw the flashing lights as they neared Bruce's place, and Guy parked not far from the police cars. John and Shayera got out before he could reach either door to open it for them, which gave John a certain spiteful pleasure.

Bruce's car arrived just as they reached the cops. "Hello, Mr. Stewart," said one of the cops in greeting.

"Officer Jordan," said John, nodding to him. "Someone called me."

"Yes. We just extracted the body, finally, but his license was in the flap." Jordan produced a small card with J'onn's name spelled "Jean Jones," issued by the city.

He heard Shayera gasp, and then saw what she'd seen behind Jordan: the car had hit a large oak tree dead-on, wrapping the front end around it like two arms embracing the bent trunk. John's mouth went dry.

"You say you just extracted him?" asked Bruce.

"This way." The body was under a sheet. "The lady might want to look away."

Shayera said, "The lady does not."

Jordan twitched the sheet, and yes, John knew that face, though only as of late. "That's him."

Shayera swore softly as Bruce sighed. He bent down to the body and closed the staring eyes. Blood dribbled from the back of his head onto the stretcher, and there were glass shards and cuts all over his skin and clothing. Bruce pulled the sheet back over J'onn's body.

Jordan said, "We've tried calling the widow."

"She's out of town," Bruce said.

"How would you know that?"

"He was at my house earlier today, and mentioned it."

"Really?" asked Jordan, and now the question edged into interrogation territory. "So you're saying that he died right after leaving your house?"

Bruce paused. "He might have." A beat. "That poor man."

"We'll want to ask you a few questions. Step over here for a moment, please." Jordan nodded to John. "Thanks for your time, Mr. Stewart."

John took Shayera's arm and pulled her out of the circle of police cars. More cars were pulling up on the other side of the accident scene, and Clark, Wally and Diana soon joined them.

"Is it really him?" Clark asked.

"Yeah," said John. "They're asking Bruce some questions since he was the last one to see J'onn alive."

Diana closed her eyes. "How bad?"

"Pretty messy," Shayera said. "It looks like the car came down the hill too fast and he didn't turn at the bottom."

Wally walked as close as he dared to the wreck, then winced. "Okay, whose job was it to show J'onn how to drive?"

"Mine," said Clark, and whatever chance Wally'd had for a joke fell flat.

John looked at Shayera. "When we looked at him, did you notice what I noticed?"

She nodded. "I think Bruce did, too."

Wally said, "You're killing us with suspense here, guys."

John said, "He was cut up in the accident pretty badly, but the worst of it was on the back of his head."

"But it was a front collision," Clark said. He pulled out a pad of paper and began scribbling something down. "Sorry. I need to cover this story. So he had injuries to the back of his head?"

"Yeah," said Shayera.

"Which means," John said quietly, "odds are pretty good that someone killed him and then tried to make it look like an accident."

Bruce walked over from the police cars, hands in his pockets.

"That was quick," Diana said.

"I didn't know anything. I know when he left, and that was maybe an hour before the car was found."

Clark asked, "Did you see anything strange about his injuries?"

"You mean, other than the blunt trauma to the back of the head and the post-mortem lacerations from the glass?"

Wally nodded, as if he'd understood. "They'll notice that in an autopsy."

"No, they won't," said Bruce. "They'll call it an accident. Bullock already wants to call it suicide."

"Told you," John said to Shayera. She ignored him.

"What's next?" she asked. "_We_ know he's not really dead, not if we fix this. How do we fix it?"

Diana said, "First we discover who would have a motive for killing J'onn. Then we backtrack to see if anyone matches with a motive for killing Vixen and Arrow. That'll be our killer."

"Problem," Wally said. "That makes me the chief suspect."

"Then you'd better come up with an alibi," Bruce said. "I've got an early meeting tonight with someone, but then I can look over his notes to see if I can find anything to help us." He pulled a small notebook from his jacket that John thought he recognized.

"You picked his pocket while you were examining his corpse?" hissed Shayera incredulously

"There are few better opportunities." Bruce started looking through the notebook, and frowned.

Diana asked, "What's wrong?"

Instead of answering, Bruce showed them the notebook. It was written in a spindly script John couldn't read, and then his brain kicked in with recognition. "He wrote everything down in Martian?"

Bruce looked back and forth between Clark and Shayera. "Tell me one of you can read this." They both stared at him blankly.

"Dammit," said Wally.

"New plan," Bruce said, stowing the notebook away. "After my meeting tonight, I'll go by J'onn's house and see if I can recreate his notes from the documents he's already looked through."

No one asked him how he was getting inside. No one had to.

"Wally, Diana, I want the two of you to follow the police back to the morgue. See if you can get a copy of the coroner's report. Better, see if you can sit in on the autopsy. If anyone asks, I've hired you to investigate the circumstances of Vixen's murder, and you're on the lookout for signs that J'onn was the killer, who then killed himself in remorse. See if you can get a closer look at his head wounds and try to figure out what he was killed with."

"Got it," said Wally. Diana merely nodded, looking a little green. John had figured she'd have seen plenty of corpses, but then again, nobody ever died on Themyscira.

"Clark, keep looking in the back issues of the paper. There's got to be something there to help us."

"I've already found a few things," Clark said. "I apparently wrote an article right after Ollie was elected Mayor, claiming the results were suspicious."

"Not a surprise," Diana said. "He was a crime boss."

Clark shrugged. "I made a veiled reference to an 'incident' from a few years back, but I haven't found what it was yet."

"Learn to write better," said Shayera.

"I think Lois wrote it," he replied, but then he changed the subject. "It's getting harder to go down to archives. Perry's been after me to follow up on the murders."

"I'll help you look," John said. "There's nothing useful at my place." He didn't want to mention how much being cooped up there was getting to him, or how helpless he was beginning to feel searching the house with nothing to show.

"You'll be conspicuous," Bruce said.

"I'll be in Clark's building. It'll be fine."

"Fine. Shayera?"

"I'll stay behind here and reconnoiter the accident scene when they've left, see if I can find anything."

"No. You'll go back to your house and wait until one of us contacts you."

"Excuse me?"

"You're still the primary murder suspect. You need to stay out of trouble and out of sight."

"Whether or not I killed Mari, I didn't kill Arrow or J'onn. You know that."

"The police don't," said Bruce.

Clark said, "You've got links to both of them, too. One of the articles I found mentioned you."

She folded her arms. "This should be good."

"You were apparently a spy for the other side during the war." The color drained from her face. "A lot of people were calling for you to be put on trial, but you had influential friends, and the charges were dropped. The cover story was that you'd been a double agent for the Allies, but in the article, I indicated that I didn't believe it. There were some other things. Don't worry about it."

"Was Arrow one of my 'friends?'" She sounded tired all of a sudden.

Clark nodded. "Bruce too."

"Figures. Fine. I'll stay out of trouble."

"All right," said Bruce. "We'll meet up tomorrow. Twos and threes only, if we can help it, and pass along what you know." Without another word he turned back towards his car.

"Come on, Princess," Wally said. "Let's go watch cleanup. You keep an eye on where they take J'onn, I'll look over the accident scene."

John looked at Clark. "Wait up a minute." To Shayera he said, "Tell Guy to take you home."

"Sure. Whatever." He watched her walk back to where Guy waited, and watched her let Guy open the door for her.

"She's going to be yelling later," Clark predicted, leading the way around to his own car. As they reached it, he pulled out a camera and stood back, snapping a picture of the crash scene.

"Maybe." That hadn't been anger on her face or in her voice. Only defeat. "I'm driving."

* * *

Carter's car was parked outside her bungalow. As she opened the door, he rushed through the kitchen towards her. "Shayera! Where have you been?" He looked past her to see the Rolls pulling away, and frowned. "Oh." 

"J'onn J'onzz was killed a few hours ago. Accident. John had to identify the body and I went with him."

"Jones is dead?"

She nodded. He wasn't really dead, she knew. He wouldn't be dead. As soon as they cracked this, he'd be fine. That didn't stop the heaviness in her chest, or the too-familiar sense of loss. She believed in J'onn's death more than she'd believed in Mari's. _Or maybe you're not celebrating this one,_ nagged that voice in her head she hated.

Carter went to embrace her, but she pulled back from him. "Don't." She pushed past him and sat down on her couch. "I hate feeling useless in all of this. I want to help."

He sat down beside her and started rubbing her shoulders. "There's nothing you can do to help. He's gone."

Carter didn't know. He couldn't. He wasn't real. "I need to do _something_."

"You're in shock, darling. Macabe's dead and now Jones. I'm not happy they're gone, but think of it as our chance to make a clean break with this place."

"I'm not leaving." She sighed. "But you need to. I want to be alone right now, Carter. _Joe_," she corrected quickly as he froze.

His voice changed, and in those tones she heard echoes of the Shadow Thief. "Tell me who Carter is."

"He's ... no one. In shock, remember?"

"Is that your pet name for Stewart? Or maybe you were paying your rent with Jones the same way you paid it with Stewart. Is Carter some little nickname?"

She restrained the urge to punch him. "Carter was the name of a guy I knew once. Handsome, charming, and dumber than a sack of bricks." Shayera stood up. "Go home, Joe."

"This isn't over, Shayera."

She rolled her eyes. "You say that every millennium. Out." She didn't watch him go, instead walking out to her back porch to see the ocean. Her backyard dropped off sharply about ten feet out, almost vertically for a good two hundred feet, then sloping out at the bottom into beach. If she'd had her wings, it'd be a great spot to jump off and glide over the coastal thermals. If she jumped off right now, she'd be as dead as Mari and J'onn.

"To hell with this," she muttered, and then grabbed what were probably her car keys from the counter. She got into her car and looked around. She could pilot a Javelin in her sleep. This couldn't be that hard, right?

* * *

Perry was already screaming when Clark came through the door: "You'd better have pictures!" 

"Right here, Chief," he said, and Jimmy snatched the camera out of his hands.

"I want those developed ten minutes ago, Olsen."

"On it, Chief."

"And who the hell is this?" Perry asked, pointing at John.

John smiled thinly. "John Stewart. Nice to meet you." He extended a hand.

Perry stared at the hand and then at John. He turned away, grousing at Clark, "I don't have time for this."

After Perry's door slammed shut again, Clark turned to John, saying in a low voice, "I'd apologize for him, but he's a jerk and not worth it."

"No kidding," said Lois, two desks away.

"Yeah," John said.

"The real Perry's a better man."

John shrugged. "Whatever you say. They're out of _your_ head, not mine." Lois raised her head and stared at them. Clark took John's arm and led him back to where they kept the old papers.

"Here's my notes. I made it back to February. I have to write this up," and now he _was_ apologetic. The last thing he wanted to do right now was try to sauce up the description of J'onn's death.

"I'll do what I can here. If you get any leads on the murders -- "

"You'll be with me."

Clark went back to his desk, and John got to work.

* * *

Bruce slipped into the booth at ten till seven and ordered coffee. At quarter past, Tim sauntered into the café and sat down across from him. 

"You're late."

"I hadta case the joint, make sure I wasn't bein' set up. You still say you're legit?"

"Naw," said Bruce in Matches' patois. "I'm just sayin' I ain't gonna set you up." Tim grinned.

The waitress came by and took their orders. When Tim asked for coffee too, Bruce said, "Give the kid a glass of milk. And when you see our plates get empty, just keep bringing the pancakes, sugar."

If Ronnie saw any resemblance between Matches Malone and the man Bruce had been this morning, not a trace of it showed on her face, and he wasn't about to ask her how long her shift must be to keep her there all day and into the night.

"Tell me abut yourself, kid."

"Ain't much to tell." Tim sat back with the self-possession of a teenager who'd seen more in the world than anyone else would believe.

"Is it just you and your ma?"

"What's that supposed to mean?" He glared angrily over the mug of milk that was placed in front of him.

"Nothin'. Just tryin' to make chit chat."

"My dad's dead," Tim said, pushing against the table and leaning back. "Before I was born."

"Sorry, kid."

"Don't be. Ma says he was a jerkhole."

"You love your ma, don't you?"

"You want me to do a job, Mr. Malone, or do you wanna ask me about my mom? I already asked you if you wanted a date with her."

"Like I said, just makin' small talk. I hate making deals on an empty stomach, so I don't. I eat. Then I deal."

"I don't need a deal from you," Tim said sullenly. "I got connections."

"Mr. Grayson."

"Yeah."

"He feed you? Pay you?" Two large stacks of pancakes were placed in front of them. Tim fell on his like a starving man.

"Enough," he said with his mouth stuffed full.

Bruce poured his syrup and cut into his stack, but there was no way he could keep up with Tim unless he had a hollow leg and two hollow arms. Selina had lied to Tim about his father, or maybe she was lying to Bruce. Again, that Tim would be named in his will said what Bruce needed to know about how much his counterpart believed her.

Bruce tried a new tactic. "You hear anything about the Vixen getting whacked?"

Tim scowled. "No. I'd a done it myself, though." He stabbed a pancake and shoved it into his mouth.

"Not a fan, huh?"

"Hah. Her livin' high and mighty, everyone's star, while Ma's walkin' the streets. That oughta be us livin' there." Bruce said nothing, sipped his coffee, let the silence unwind the tale instead. "Ma was a star once, you know? Back when the talkies first started comin' out. She was gonna be a big name. Mr. Wayne," Tim leaned over and spat on the ground, "was gonna put her in a big movie. Know what movie that was?" Bruce shook his head. "A HERO'S WELCOME. Do you believe that? My mother shoulda been Katherine. Instead, Wayne," he spat again, "cast that Macabe bitch, and now look at her."

"She's dead."

"Well. Yeah. But she's rich dead, and Ma's street trash. She won't last much longer. I hear her coughin'. But Mr. Grayson, he says he'll take care of me. I do him favors now, and he'll take care of me good."

Tim's plate of pancakes was gone, and another took its place. Tim devoured it as savagely as the first. Bruce took a few bites of his second plateful, then tipped the rest onto Tim's.

"Go ahead. I ain't hungry."

Tim didn't bother with a thanks. Sullen and lost in old grudges, he chewed his food, dropping crumbs as he kept talking. "Ma says we ought to be livin' like kings 'stead of _her_."

"Why didn't your Ma just get another movie?"

Tim grinned hugely and mirthlessly, pancakes stuffed in his mouth. Very muffled, he said, "Me."

_I covered it up,_ Bruce thought. _I must have paid Selina off and told her to keep quiet, and I gave Vixen the role that launched her career instead. And I knew it, because I put it in my will to take care of him after I die. Too bad I couldn't be bothered while I was alive. Am alive._

"I'm sorry," Bruce said, and he meant it for every night they'd searched for Tim, and most of all for the night they'd found him.

"Whatever, mister," Tim said, and glugged his milk. J'onn had called him "whole" this morning, but J'onn hadn't been able to use his powers. The child in front of him was as scarred from being abandoned by Bruce as was the child back at the real Wayne Manor. He couldn't undo the damage he'd inflicted on either one. Maybe that was the point, or maybe the point was that he had to go forward with them both anyway.

"So, kid."

"Call me Timmy the Shoeshine Boy. Everyone does."

"So, Timmy the Shoeshine Boy. While we're still chattin', why don't you tell me about your day?"

* * *

On a mission to a particularly violent forest moon, Shayera had once spent two days in the same position, as she and the other survivors of their squad waited for the Gordanians in the next clearing to discover them and finish the job. Here she had to wait less than three hours, but she was out of practice, and the stink of something gone terribly wrong with her car was strong in her nose, though she'd parked and hidden the smoking, jerking thing a mile back. She was restless, and the minute the last police car drove away, she ached to jump up. 

Caution just barely kept her still, until finally, she was certain no one was left. Her night-vision was in, and her ears alert for any sound, but only the normal noises of a slightly wooded area came to her: insects singing to one another, the rustle of nocturnal animals creeping out to find food. The mosquitoes had tasted her and then left her alone; that at least was a blessing.

Now she had to pretend to be a detective again, and recall the hurried training she'd received before her assignment.

Broken glass glittered in the hint of moonlight available. Bits of the automobile, broken off in the crash, still littered the base of the tree. No skid marks, nor had she suspected any. She'd seen how deep the tree had gone into the car, but without knowing what material the car was made from, she couldn't accurately judge the velocity on impact.

She looked up at the top of the hill, barely outlined in the gloom against the sky. Steep slope, and headed towards J'onn's home. Whoever'd killed him must have been following him, and ambushed him.

Shayera stood a moment, tapping her hands on her legs. He could have been killed before or after he'd reached the hill, and the killer could have driven him back here to crash the car. Her gut said "before." She started walking.

Two miles down the road, she was ready to give up. She'd gone the wrong way, or else whoever it was had an accomplice who'd driven them away from the scene.

The moon slipped through the trees, casting weird patterns on the road.

Shayera ignored the pace of her heart. There was no way she was frightened of the dark. She had plenty of legitimate things to be afraid of, thank you, and if she'd been herself, she'd have been happy to say the most dangerous thing in a dark woods at night was her. So when she jumped at a close skitter of small feet, she felt doubly stupid. Besides, she'd brought a knife, sheathed in a leather glove she'd found in her house, and shoved through her belt.

This was pointless. She'd never find anything in the dark. She'd just ...

A car's engine hummed nearby, and she fled into the bushes. From her hiding spot, she noticed a cloud of insects boiling up from the road, captured in the car's headlights as they escaped up or splattered on the windshield, and then the auto was past.

When she was sure it was gone, she stepped out onto the road and examined the spot from which the bugs had flown. She expected a puddle in a pothole, but found instead a dark stain, not large. No one would have noticed it driving by, and she'd have missed it in the dark without the car.

A shiver ran through her. J'onn had been murdered here.

The road yielded no footprints or other spoor. Her nose wasn't half what it ought to be, and at any rate, enough cars had driven by since to fill the air with their thick fumes. She searched the brush to either side of the road, on the off-chance the murder weapon had been tossed carelessly away. No such luck.

About ten meters back, she found tire tracks on the hardpack shoulder, as if a car had pulled off to the side. Could have happened at any time, but Shayera didn't believe in coincidence.

She looked around the area to take note of where she was, realizing as she did so that long stretches of coastal highway all resembled each other.

A likely-looking palm tree stood near the road. Shayera pulled out her knife and etched a rune (_joshi_, "here") into the side where she'd see it when she came back in the daylight, preferably with Wally and a way of copying a tire track.

* * *

The sound of the phone ringing pulled Bruce from sleep. Far away he heard the noise. Down in the front hall, near the entrance, jingling as he rubbed the sleep from his eyes. 

Night out. He didn't often sleep at night, not at home, but here all the rules were different. He heard Alfred pick up the phone, could not make out more than the sound of the man's tired voice.

Bruce lay back. Clark? Diana? He heard Alfred's tread on the stairs, on the hallway outside. He watched in the darkness as the doorknob turned.

And he knew, as he saw Alfred's somber face lined in shadow from the hall lamp.

"Who's dead?"

"It's your brother. I'm sorry, sir." Brother? And then J'onn's words came back to him.

Dick.

* * *

To Be Continued 


	9. Chapter 8

* * *

Chapter Eight

* * *

Well, that was just wrong.

Because in the movies, that's not how it happened; there was supposed to be a phone call first, giving him time to prepare. That's how these things were supposed to work.

Not on their way to the office from breakfast. Not an arm reaching out of the early morning shadows and fog (of course there was fog), grabbing Diana. Not her stumbling on high heels, the gleam of a knife at her throat. And no one else on the street at this time of day, though that at least was expected.

Out of instinct, Wally ran forward a few steps before remembering his powers didn't work. If their powers were working, the knife would be out of the guy's hand already. In fact, if their powers were working he'd have never gotten the knife to Diana's throat in the first place, because she would have sent him flying against the wall the minute he touched her.

"Take it easy." Wally hastily stepped back. The guy had a fedora pulled down low over his face. Just to make the cliche more perfect, he was dressed in a long black raincoat.

"Give me the necklace or I cut her," he rasped. Wally suspected the voice was put-on, like Bruce's batvoice.

"You don't want to do that," said Wally, trying to remember martial arts. He blanked completely on the best move to make when your opponent had a knife to a friend's throat.

"Oh, I don't, do I?"

_Who writes this dialogue?_ Wally wondered in a detached way.

"No, you don't. Let's deal. I have the necklace. If you hurt her, you don't get it."

"If you don't give me the necklace, I'll do more than just hurt her."

_What would Sam Spade do? Heck, what would Batman do? Think, Wally, think._

Before he could come up with a witty reply, Diana's elbow jabbed backwards hard into the guy's ribcage. He grunted; she let out a small war-cry as she twisted from his grasp. Her other hand shot out, palm flat, smashing into his face. The knife clattered to the damp pavement.

As he staggered back, clutching his bloody nose, Diana lifted her foot, pushing her heel against his chest and pinning him down.

She pulled off his hat, throwing it into a puddle. The guy had shaggy hair, a low, thick brow, full lips, bulging eyes--in short, the epitome of every goon in every black and white movie Wally had ever seen, with a touch of Peter Lorre.

Hands on her hips, shoe digging into the middle of his chest, Diana leaned over him. "Who hired you?"

"Nobody," he mumbled.

She twisted the foot, digging the heel in. "Try again."

"Go to hell," he said.

"What should we do with him?" Wally asked.

"Knock him out, tie him up, take him back the office, and ask him more questions," Diana said without hesitation.

The guy groaned.

"Works for me," Wally shrugged.

So she slugged him across the jaw. The goon passed out.

As Diana stepped off of him, Wally saw something in the dim light, the glow of the streetlight through the early grey dawn.

"Diana," he said.

"What?"

"You're bleeding."

"I'm..." her hand went to her neck. "It's all right," she said. "The cut's not deep."

Wally put his hand in the pocket of his trenchcoat and wasn't surprised when his fingers found a cloth handkerchief. "Here," he said, handing it to her.

She took it. "Thanks." She pressed it against the thin cut just below her jaw, where the knife had nicked her.

"We'd better get this guy back to the office." Wally bent down, grabbed his shoulders, and then slung him over his shoulder. The guy was tall, and Wally staggered a bit under the weight.

"I can't believe his gall, grabbing me like that," Diana said, as they walked down the deserted street, the thick fog seeming to disperse and part for them.

"He did it to get to me," Wally said, stepping through a puddle that reflected him and his burden for a moment before his foot rippled the water, destroying the image. "Because I'm the P.I. and everyone knows the tough P.I.'s one weakness is his Girl Friday." Wally laughed. "You played your part wrong."

"So I make a lousy Girl Friday?" Diana said, the corner of her mouth quirking almost to a smile.

"I think I like your version better than the original."

* * *

Clark drove.

He made no attempt to break the silence that filled the car. Bruce stared straight ahead, face impassive.

He'd called Clark with the stark basics: Dick and Roy, shot dead in their home. Barbara, barely clinging to life, shot in Dick's bed.

The drive seemed to take an eternity. At last they pulled to a stop in front of the morgue. Clark turned off the engine and sat back, hands lightly on the wheel, listening to the engine tick into silence.

"I could wait out here, if you'd like," Clark said.

"No." Bruce opened the door and stepped out.

Clark followed him up the steps, under the arch, and through the double doors into the simply furnished, bleak hallway.

There were forms to fill out, and then an attendant led them through another set of doors, down a hallway that Clark swore was growing longer as they walked. It was like the car ride, as if time were stretching out before him. This seemed more surreal than anything he'd seen so far in this world they were caught in.

The attendant opened one of the thick metal doors that lined one wall. A metal tray slid out with a clang. Clark winced, then glanced at Bruce, who stood motionless.

"Well?" The attendant said, after he'd flipped back the sheet.

Beneath black hair the blue eyes stared blank and fixed at the ceiling.

Clark looked at Bruce. He couldn't help it.

"That's him," Bruce said, his eyes on the waxen features.

Nodding, the attendant --- whom Clark didn't recognize but kept expecting to ---flipped the sheet back into place, slid the tray away, and slammed the door shut.

It was over.

Bruce turned and walked out of the room, unhurried. Clark followed. Though either of them could identify Roy Harper's body as well, neither would volunteer and no one would ask them.

Together, they stepped out into the Los Diablos morning. The sun was hidden by a blanket of fog rolling over them. Clark shivered.

"It's not really him. You understand that, right?" Clark felt like an idiot as soon as he spoke. There was no comfort that needed to be offered, because Bruce understood that just fine, thank you very much, and no comfort that would be accepted, because Bruce never accepted comfort even if and when he needed it, and he'd just looked at the corpse of a man identical to his adopted son.

"Yes," Bruce said flatly.

"Come on." Clark walked around to the driver's side of the car. "I'll buy you a drink."

* * *

Wally had to carry the guy up the two flights of stairs to his office. Diana unlocked the door with his key, which was in his coat pocket and boy, was _that_ awkward because she had to pull the key out herself since his hands were full of Shady Looking Goon. She flicked on the light while Wally dumped Shady Looking Goon into a chair.

"We have any rope?" He tossed his fedora towards the coat rack. This time it landed gracefully over a hook. Wally stifled a whoop of triumph.

"I'll see." Diana rummaged through the drawers of her desk, checked the closet, then wandered into Wally's office to look in there.

"Look in the filing cabinet!" Wally called.

"Why would rope be in a filing cabinet?" She poked her head out of the office door.

"Because that's where P.I.'s keep stuff."

"I thought that's where they keep files?" Diana opened the filing cabinet.

"You'd think." Wally glanced at their prisoner, who stirred faintly.

He actually had no idea why he thought there might be rope in the filing cabinet. It wasn't something he could remember from any of his favorite old movies. Maybe it was from watching TV. A lot of those P.I. characters seemed to be slobs and kept stuff in the oddest places.

Usually, the only thing they seemed to use the filing cabinet for was to hide the gin.

"Here." Diana tossed him some rope.

He began to tie the goon to the chair. "Where'd you find it?"

"Under the cushions of the couch. Here, let me do that."

"O-kay." She tugged the rope tight. The Shady Looking Goon groaned and opened his eyes. "Hi!" Wally said cheerfully.

SLG frowned, then jerked forward. Finding himself unable to move out of the chair, he looked down at the ropes, then slowly looked back up at Wally with a look of fury so vivid Wally wished he had a camera. This guy looked like every heavy in every double-feature Wally had ever seen.

He stepped back, pulling Diana with him. "What do we do now?" He whispered.

"I don't know! You've seen all of the movies!" She looked over Wally's shoulder at the guy. "I believe you should ask him questions."

"Right. Good plan." Wally turned back. "All right, tough guy." He dropped his hands to the arms of the wooden chair, trying to loom. Wally knew a lot of guys in real life who knew how to _loom_; he didn't need Humphrey Bogart for reference. The guy jerked against his bonds again. Wally saw the head-butt attempt coming and pulled back quickly in a very un-Sam Spade way.

Wally coughed, pretending that pulling back suddenly like that was his plan all along, then sneered. "Who sent you?"

The man in the chair was silent.

"Di-an-a," Wally said through clenched teeth, under his breath, "this isn't wooooorking."

She'd been standing with her arms folded, one foot tilted back onto a high heel. Her outfit was much the same as the first morning they'd found his office, a simple navy blue skirt and matching jacket, white blouse with a frilly front. At Wally's plea, she unfolded her arms, gently pushed him aside, and stood before the man in the chair.

The guy's upper lip curled up at her. "I might talk if the dame sits on my lap."

"Watch your mouth, bucko," Wally said.

"Listen." Diana dropped her voice to a soft purr that made all the hair on the back of Wally's arms stand up. She put her hands on the chair arms, while goon kept leering but sat back a little, suspicious. "I'm having a very bad couple of days. Two people I care about have died. I'm far from home, my stockings itch, I've been demoted from ambassador to typist, and then I was rudely grabbed and had a knife stuck to my throat. So unless you would like me to remove my left shoe and ram the heel up your nose, I suggest you tell us what we need to know." Only then did her voice harden again. "Starting with who sent you to get the necklace."

"I ain't telling you nothin'."

Diana straightened up and walked back over to Wally. Then she tugged him over towards the water cooler. "I can't actually beat it out of him," she whispered.

"Why not? Even without your Amazon strength, you're tough enough to."

"Because we don't do things that way. Interrogate people? Hit someone tied up in a chair?"

"Yeah, I know." Wally rubbed the back of his neck. "But we have to get him to talk. Bribery?"

"It's worth a try, isn't it?" Diana gave him a little push.

Wally turned back to their prisoner. "Whatever you're being paid, we'll give you double."

"I'm being paid quite a lot."

"We can offer more." When the goon laughed, Wally added, "Trust me. We know people."

But the goon closed his mouth, lips going thin. This time, Wally tugged Diana over to the water cooler. "That's not working either. Have any other suggestions?"

"Wally, this isn't something I know anything about."

"But you're an ambassador. Isn't that your job, persuading people?"

"No. I'm a mediator. I don't talk people into things, I keep people talking to each other." She folded her arms again.

"He doesn't know we don't do things...that way."

"Meaning..."

"I think you should try threatening him with your shoe again."

"This is very new," Diana said.

"What do you mean?"

"We've never interrogated anyone before. We've never had to." She tugged at her jacket. "If I were in uniform ..."

"He'd be a babbling cretin, begging for mercy already. Actually ..." Wally turned to look at the goon, who glowered back. "That gives me an idea." He winked at Diana then said loudly, "No, you can't do that!"

"What are you--"

"Please, Diana, restrain yourself." Praying she wouldn't punch his lights out for doing it, he grabbed her by the shoulders. "Remember what the judge said! If you put another man in traction like you did last time ... "

It took her a moment, but then she caught Wally's eye and her lips twitched before she lunged forward. "He's scum! I'll get him to talk the way I did the others. Let me go, West."

"No, Diana. He's not worth it."

Wally stole a look at their prisoner and yes, he did look a little nervous. The goon shifted in his bonds, his eyes never leaving Diana. A few strands of hair had come loose from the tightly coiled bun and she looked furious, a parody of her actual battle-face. Who knew Diana was such an actress? But then, she had to be, between being one of the League as well as being a diplomat. She didn't hide her identity like some of them did, but she played multiple roles all the same.

"Listen, buddy," Wally said, still holding onto Diana, "I don't know how much longer I can restrain her. She's usually a doll, but when she gets angry like this..." he winced, and shuddered. "That poor mook was in traction for months."

"What'll you give me if I tell you?" The guy said slowly.

"Double what you were paid to do this job."

"Let me think about it," he said sullenly.

Diana gave a little scream of rage and tried to shove past Wally, who was only half-pretending that it was difficult to hold her back, that she almost knocked him to the ground. "Think faster," Wally shouted.

"Who sent you," Diana demanded.

"I don't know. I was given instructions at a drop location. They wanted me to leave the necklace at the same location, where I'd pick up my money."

"What's the location?"

"The trash bin at 18th and Kane."

Wally immediately let go of Diana and went over to her desk so he could scribble the location down. Meanwhile, Diana gave a sigh, straightened, and began to tuck the loose strands of hair back into the bun. She gave the goon a serene smile.

"Hey..." the goon said. "You played me."

"I'll call the police to come pick up this guy," Wally said. He picked up the phone, then hesitated. "Um. Diana?"

"Yes?"

"How do I call the police again?"

* * *

Two beat cops arrived to take the goon away. Officer Dibny nodded in an amiable way at Wally and said "Another one, Mr. West? You sure do keep our arrest counts up."

"I do what I can," Wally said, with a grin and a shrug, pleased to see a familiar, friendly face as a policeman this time.

The other one, Officer Lord, didn't ring any bells. He looked a bit too slick to be a beat cop, his hair too neatly combed, and he kept smirking at Diana until Officer Dibny finally smacked him upside the head.

"What?" Officer Lord complained in the outraged tones of an innocent wronged as they dragged their prisoner away.

When they were gone, Wally unlocked the cabinet drawer where they'd put the evidence. He put the items out on his desk while Diana sat in one of the two leather chairs facing it. She picked up the necklace, letting it dangle from her fingers. The sterling silver question mark gleamed in the dirty sunlight peeking through the clouds and blinds.

"Someone went to a lot of trouble to take this away from us." Wally watched the silver pendant turning and frowned.

"We still don't know where the Riddler is."

"Maybe it's not his. I had a chance to look through some of my old papers last night. Vic Sage used to be my partner a few years ago."

"The Question?"

"Yeah. Looks like he vanished a few years ago right as the bills piled up. I think that's why I'm in so much debt."

"Even if it _is_ Question's, he doesn't seem the type to wear silver necklaces. Who was wearing it when it was dropped in the club? Did they kill Ollie?"

"We have no other clues at the moment. It's gotta be connected."

"So we'll keep looking for Nygma. Any idea how to contact Sage?"

"If Wally West, P.I., and Vic had some kind of signal system, I haven't seen any sign of it. It's not like I can put masking tape in the shape of a question mark on the window and shine a light through it."

He sighed and sat heavily on his small, uncomfortable couch. "So. I'm the washed-up detective. You're the Girl Friday. Question is my ex-partner on the run. I wonder who's going to end up being the femme fatale?"

"The what?"

Wally recited: "A woman of loose morals who tries to seduce the P.I. in order to get what she wants. Usually one of the suspects." He turned when he heard the footsteps outside.

She didn't so much knock as bang once on the glass, open the knob, and walk in.

"We have to go back to the crash scene," Shayera said without preamble. "With something to take an impression of a tire track. We could use...what is that called..." she snapped her fingers. "Plaster of paris. We should be able to find that here, right?"

"And a good morning to you too," said Diana, dropping the necklace into a desk drawer.

"I found tire tracks but no footprints." Shayera went on. "I couldn't make out that much last night, I'm hoping it will be better in daylight."

"Well, actually, Wally and I were planning to..."

"Oh, come on, Diana. What? Jot more notes? Look, I know a little something about how to do this."

"Actually, so does Wally." Diana wrote something else down on her notepad.

"I can't sit around and do nothing. I figured you two could use some help."

"We're doing okay," said Diana.

"Are you going to argue with me or are you two going to come back with me to the crash site?"

Wally pulled himself up from his couch. "We might as well. Maybe we'll find something."

"We need plaster of paris."

"We'll stop at a crafts shop," said Wally. "I'll call us a cab."

"No need, I've got a car."

"You _drove_ here?"

"I'm a trained pilot, Diana. Yes, I drove here. Now let's go."

Wally shrugged. "I was stuck for what to do next anyhow. Just hope we survive the ride out there. Maybe I should drive?"

"No way." Shayera opened the door. "My car."

"Let's go then." Wally paused, watching as Diana pulled on her jacket. "You feeling okay?"

"Peachy."

* * *

Shayera only ran one red light and scraped her car against a mailbox once on the way to the crafts store where they got the plaster of paris.

She took the curving hill road way too fast, in Diana's opinion. Wally sat in the front passenger seat slumped down with his hands over his eyes.

The car pulled to the side of the road and stopped.

"You can open your eyes now, Wally," Shayera said calmly. She opened the door and stepped out. Diana and Wally followed.

Woods lined the road on either side. "Where are we going?" Wally asked, as they followed Shayera along the road. Birds twittered softly in the quiet.

Diana thought it was interesting how quickly Wally gave up his air of authority now that Shayera was there. He seemed content to follow, different than the last few days where Diana for the first time found herself deferring to Wally as leader.

Now that Shayera was there, things seemed more the way they were back at home. It filled her with irritation as well as relief.

"I found the spot where J'onn was murdered," Shayera said, in a flat tone.

"Oh," Wally said, ducking to avoid a low, jutting tree branch.

"Careful where you step. You might disturb evidence."

"Thank you, Shayera, I don't know how Wally and I managed before you showed up." Diana caught the slow, assessing look the other woman gave her, trying to figure out if she had actually heard Diana's sarcasm or it was all in her head. Gesturing graciously for Shayera to go ahead of her, Diana gave her most diplomatic smile. "You first. I wouldn't want one of my clumsy Amazonian feet to crush something important."

Shayera's lips pursed. Yes, she'd definitely caught the sarcasm. Diana thought she was better at concealing it than that, but then, Shayera was trained in espionage.

Kneeling, Shayera pointed towards the base of a palm tree. "There. I marked it."

There was a rune etched into the bark and nearby, a stain on the road. Diana closed her eyes a moment.

"Look around, see if you can spot anything. It was too dark when I was here last night."

"There's nothing here," Wally said, finally, after ten minutes of searching.

"That's what I was afraid of. Whoever the murderer is, they're meticulous." Shayera stood up and brushed off her slacks. "Anyway, over here is where I found the tire track. Wally, go get the plaster of paris and we'll take an impression."

"Are you going to let her boss you around like that?" Diana kicked off her shoe to dislodge a pebble, then slid the shoe back on.

Wally looked from Shayera to Diana and didn't move.

"I'm not bossing him around. We need the plaster of paris."

"So go get it yourself."

Shayera rolled her eyes and lifted her hands up as if in supplication. "Great, I don't care, I'll get it myself. What is wrong with you?" She stomped off for the car.

Wally turned to Diana and opened his mouth to speak but she held up her hand, palm flat. "Don't start," she said.

* * *

They took an impression of the tire with a minimum of bickering but a bit of mess. Their clothes were all spattered with the white plaster by the time they were done; they mixed the stuff in the bucket Shayera had put in her trunk along with a water-filled canteen.

"I'll take this to the local tire store." Wally gently lifted the tire track mold. "Have to compare it to all the different makes. Once we figure out the brand at least, we can narrow it down. It's not like we can run a check against a computer database like I could back home. This could take a while."

"Then we'd better get on it," Shayera said, nodding.

"Not yet," Wally said. He reached into the backseat of the car and pulled out two bottles, one clear glass, one amber, and a handful of rags. As Diana watched, mystified, and Shayera waited impatiently, he dosed the rags and handed them out. "I want to see if we can find the murder weapon. We know he was hit in the back of the head. Look for large rocks, anything that could've been used to do it, and wipe them down."

They split off into different directions, poking through the underbrush. Diana found a few stones that looked hefty enough, but when Wally added his other liquid, nothing happened to her rags. Shayera found a thick branch, also a negative. Wally didn't find anything.

"Can we go now?" Shayera asked.

* * *

They raced back down the curving road, the windows open and blowing their hair every which way. "Could you go just a little slower?" Wally pleaded.

Grudgingly, Shayera let the speedometer drop a few notches. Wally's shoulders relaxed just a little.

"Shayera..." he said. "Maybe you should wait back at my office. You know, in case people check in."

"Sit around and answer the phones? I don't think so. Let the princess do that."

"Excuse me?" Diana snapped from the back seat.

"No, Diana's working on the investigation. I just meant it might be safer if you stay there."

"Safer?"

"So you don't get into any trouble."

In the back seat, Diana put her palm to her face. Wally wasn't the most tactful person.

"Wait a second." They reached the bottom of the hill. Shayera pulled the car to a stop for a red light and turned to Wally. "Was this John? Did he talk to you?"

Wally began fumbling with the glove compartment. "Wow, sun's bright today, got any shades in here?"

Shayera smacked his hand away from the handle. "Look at me, Wally. Did John tell you to make sure I sat tight somewhere out of the way? Safe?"

The reply was an indistinct mumble that sounded a lot more like "Bruce."

Smacking her hand against the steering wheel, Shayera cursed in her native language. This was all news to Diana.

Nobody said anything again until they got to the tire dealership. After Wally explained to the owner what they were doing, it took a almost an hour to compare the plaster cast to the treads of the tires that were in stock.

It turned out the pattern was the same make as the tires on J'onn's car.

Diana felt smug, then guilty about feeling smug. The important thing was to solve this case, and here she was, giving in to a petty competition, glad that Shayera's clue had added nothing new to their knowledge. Never mind that Shayera was bossy and several times made a remark that suggested she and Wally would have gotten nowhere without her brilliant plaster of paris idea.

"Well, that was completely pointless," Wally said as they stood blinking in the afternoon sun. "Anyone else hungry?"

There was a soda shop across the street. As they approached, a petite dark haired woman in a trim, A-line skirt and a short jacket, her little hat perched at a perky angle on her head, ran up to them.

"Mr. West?" She said breathlessly, notebook clutched in one small hand, pencil in the other. "Word on the street is you're investigating the Macabe murder case. Could I interview you?"

Shayera stepped in front of Wally. "Who's asking?"

"I'm Linda Park with _The Daily Babbler_."

Diana glanced at Wally, who shrugged. They hadn't heard of it but it sounded like a tabloid.

"We're busy." Shayera started to tug Wally towards the door of the soda shop.

"But our readers would really be interested to know how a private eye goes about solving a case like this." She transferred her pencil to her other hand and put her palm against Wally's chest. "I'll bet you have some nifty stories you could tell," Linda said, her eyes bright as she looked up at him.

Diana watched Wally's resistance melt like ice cream on a hot sidewalk. She rubbed her forehead with one finger, feeling a headache coming on, while Wally's face broke into a wide grin. "Well, now, I guess I might have a few. Like the time I recovered the rare Maltese-- "

While Diana was still thinking about doing it, Shayera went ahead and ground her heel into the top of Wally's shoe.

"--Ow!" Wally turned to glare at Shayera.

"Sorry," she said, and smiled innocently. "Goodness!" She shaded her eyes with her hand, as if looking towards a distant clocktower--Diana hadn't seen one nearby but in Los Diablos they were common. "Look at the time! Gotta go."

"But Mr. West..." Linda ran after them, her heels tapping briskly on the concrete.

Shayera turned, drew herself up to her full height, and _glared_.

Linda Park let out a small squeak and backed up a step. Diana felt sorry for her.

They turned and walked on, Wally a bit reluctantly; he kept trying to look over his shoulder at the perky reporter.

A delivery guy on a bicycle whizzed past them, almost knocking Linda down. "Watch where you're walking, ya Jap!"

"I'm Korean, you jerk!" Linda darted aside, stumbled, and almost fell. Wally quickly stepped over and caught her by the elbow.

She smiled up at him, eyes wide with hero-worship.

"Would you like to go inside and--" Wally began.

"Sir," Diana said, in what she thought was a tone a good Girl Friday would use, "You have that appointment with the Police Commissioner in ten minutes. I suggest we get going."

Wally looked at her like the fire hydrant had suddenly started speaking ancient Greek.

"That's right," Shayera said, and hooked her arm through Wally's. "You know how anxious he gets until he knows you're on the job." Her voice dropped low, with a purring note.

"Uh...right...the Police Commissioner. Sorry, uh, Ms. Park, maybe we can do that interview later?"

"Any time," the girl said, and winked.

"He's going to be insufferable now," Diana muttered to Shayera, who rolled her eyes.

* * *

Wally was in his back office, leaning back in his chair with his feet up on the desk, fingers steepled, trying to feel like a private eye.

Motives...names...old grudges...debts...times...dates... Forensics in a way was easier. He didn't have to figure out the big picture, just zero in on a microscopic-sized clue, then pass the information along.

Heroing was easier, too. He didn't have to figure things out, merely react. If someone had a gun, take it from their hands. If a piece of flying debris was about to hit a civilian, zip over and move the civilian out of the way. If someone fell, windmill his arms to create air currents to keep them aloft. There weren't an endless number of lists and theories.

He heard Diana answer. "West Investigations. Hello, Clark, what..." There was a pause, nothing significant in itself, but there were pauses and then there were dead silences.

Wally lowered his feet to the floor with a thump, got up and went to stand in his office doorway. He watched Diana on the phone. One finger had twined into the cord connecting the headset to the phone; it was a plain, straight wire, not curly like modern phone cords. But her finger was still now, frozen. Her face looked blank.

"Oh," she said softly. "Oh, I see. Yes. They were together, then?" Diana moved her hand, and the phone cord slid off her finger. "Roy too?" She sighed, a distressed exhale.

With dread, Wally moved out into the main room. Diana glanced up at him and he mouthed _What happened?_ She held up a finger, _Wait_.

"How's Bruce... Yes, of course he knows that... Yes, I know. Okay, I'll remind him." She hung up then swiveled her chair slowly to face Wally. "Dick Grayson--this Dick Grayson--was found shot dead earlier this morning. Roy Harper was in another part of the mansion where they were, he's dead too. Barbara Gordon is still alive, but she's in surgery and they don't know her condition. Clark said he tried to call earlier but we were out."

"Yeah," Wally said softly. "Damn." More people were dying. He rubbed his face with his hands. "We're not solving this quickly enough."

"We're doing all we can," Diana said firmly. "Clark is going to meet us to go over the details from the shooting. Let's go."

"Go where?" Shayera hadn't even bothered to knock this time. She'd been out asking questions at the jewelry store down the street; Wally figured she couldn't get into too much trouble that way and it meant she and Diana weren't trying to kill each other.

"To meet Clark," Diana said. "There have been more murders."

"Hi, Shayera," Wally said. "I guess I'm...we...aren't working fast enough to solve this. People keep dying."

Shayera's fingers clenched into a fist. "Who?"

"Dick Grayson, Barbara Gordon, Roy Harper," Diana said, and looked down at her desk as if not really seeing the papers strewn all over it.

"Clark is going to give us the details, and then Diana and I were going to check it out. You...uh...should come with us," Wally said.

Diana's head came up sharply, and even Shayera looked a bit startled. "All right."

Wally hoped she didn't figure out that he'd asked because if she was investigating with him, he could watch her and keep her alive. If Wally had it his way, they'd investigate in a group. Maybe he should suggest it. No one would go anywhere alone. They could all stay at Wayne Manor. They could sleep on the floor of the main living room and toast marshmallows in the big fireplace and compare case notes.

_No one else dies. No one._

He grabbed his fedora from the hat rack and waved Shayera and Diana towards the door. "Ladies. After you?"

* * *

To be continued... 


	10. Chapter 9

* * *

Chapter Nine

* * *

A sign proudly proclaimed "Hot Dogs - 10 cents" in front of several small carts nestled under umbrellas advertising soda. Wally had managed to talk Shayera out of driving this time, and eased her car to a stop at the curb.

As they got out of the car, they spied Clark seated at the picnic table behind the carts, a half-eaten hotdog dripping with relish in one hand while he scribbled in a notebook with the other. He seemed to fit perfectly. Somehow the fedora looked okay on him, better than on himself or Bruce or even J'onn, who'd looked all right. John looked plain ridiculous in one, not that Wally would ever point that out.

They walked over to Clark without ordering anything and sat down at the table. Clark stopped writing. He put his half-eaten hotdog down as if he weren't that hungry.

Wally sniffed at the spices carried on the wind and his stomach growled pointedly. Lunch had been hours ago, and supper was rapidly looming on the horizon. He might not need the constant calories without his speed, but man, they sounded good anyway.

"Help yourself," said Clark at the noise, and Wally wolfed down the remaining half. Even if he didn't have his speed powers here, it would seem he still had almost the same appetite.

"What happened?" Shayera said.

"The mansion was Roy Harper's, a gift from his father. Roy is --- was --- heir to the Queen fortune and crime syndicate, Oliver's golden right-hand boy. No one knows who the mother is or where she is now. Or if Roy is even Oliver Queen's biological son." Clark glanced down at his notes. "Roy often had guests staying there. Dick Grayson had his own room--seems he stayed there often. He had his own apartment, a loft, across town. I called the landlord. He wasn't home much."

"And Barbara?" Wally said, putting a hand on his stomach to still the growling. Maybe it was just a stress reaction. This hardly seemed the time to get up and get another hot dog.

"I don't know yet. I thought you three could go and interview the house staff. All we know is she was there last night, in Grayson's room, and was shot. She usually stayed at Wayne Manor." Clark fisted his hand over his mouth and coughed. "Police are pinpointing the time of Grayson's death at two-fifteen. Roy's was two-twenty."

The warm breeze fluttered the edges of the dark canvas umbrella over their heads. Unlike Diana, Shayera wore her hair loose today; she impatiently pushed back the strands that blew across her face. Clark put his hand on the top of his hat to keep it from blowing off. A napkin floated away towards the white picket fence beneath a billboard advertising women's face cream.

"As if he was shot as the killer tried to leave?" Shayera leaned her elbows on the table.

"You mean maybe Roy heard something, came out of his room to investigate, and the murderer had to shoot him to escape?" Diana said.

"Or Roy was one of the targets all along." Shayera nodded. "It could have been a gangland killing. Someone with a vendetta against Queen, and Barbara Gordon was the one in the way, the incidental victim, not Roy Harper."

"The murderer must have used a silencer," said Wally. "We'll talk to the household staff. Anything else, Clark?"

"That's all."

Wally stood up. "All right, we'll go check it out."

Clark slapped his hand down on the papers to keep them from blowing away. "Perry's expecting a sensationalistic write-up on the triple murder." He grimaced. "You know, this is the first time I've ever hated being a reporter."

Diana touched his shoulder, letting her fingers linger there. "It's not your usual way."

"We'll all be home soon," Wally said, wondering if that came out as loud and desperate as it sounded. His stomach growled again. "I'm sorry, damn, I need another hotdog. They're really good."

* * *

The papers told him stories, and John tried to piece together what each one said about the story as a whole. Clark's notes on the more recent papers weren't especially helpful, but he added to them what he could.

On March 14th, Mari received an Oscar for her performance in NEVER DIE AGAIN, edging out the favorite, a Mary Dahl, for her role in THE LONELY. The article mentioned a "feud" between Bruce's company and Curry Films, which had produced the latter movie. John wrote it all down.

On January 1, the New Year's celebration at Bruce's place had turned nasty, with an old girlfriend of his attacking another guest with a knife. The attacker, Talia al Ghul, was arrested, and John had seen some talk of a trial in later issues but couldn't recall having read anything about a verdict. The victim, a Miss Beaumont, had not been mentioned in any other articles he remembered.

There was much more, usually dressed up in innuendo. Sex, drugs, guns, Clark had written about them all with lurid detail: "The victim's blood dripped onto the floor while the guests screamed in horror," and "She testified the defendant placed his hand on her knee and then slowly brought it up to the top of her thigh," being only the beginning. John read long, angst-ridden quotes from new widows, saw just-barely-legal photographs of cadavers. Violence and sex sold, and Clark's paper marketed them to the public.

When he'd made it back to the papers from early 1946, he read the tale, backwards, of Shayera's trial-by-public-opinion. His name was linked with hers, which wasn't a surprise, claiming he'd been her contact with the Allies during the war. "Double agent," they called her, or at least he had in a public statement, but the headline read "Traitor and Spy" and headlines were what sold.

He sneezed.

As a rule, John didn't worry much about allergies. When he'd been a kid, every day the pollen count had gone above a negative number, his nose had been stopped up with sneezes, but like the glasses, the allergies had left him in his adolescence, and good riddance to both. The last thing he needed while he was on an assignment, whether he was in Kasnia or on Kharana Nine, was to start the eye-watering sneezefest he remembered as going hand in hand with the first warm days of spring.

Here in the archives, the air was dry like the crackling pages he turned one at a time, and dust covered the shelves. The curator, a pruny codger named Fisher (who'd taught him Geometry), went around with a feather duster after John had settled in, managing to stir up far more dust than he was ever going to remove.

He wondered if the Kleenex company existed in this pretend place, as he sneezed and sniffled into a handkerchief while he continued to read.

On December 9th, he'd married Mari in an elaborate wedding. She was a rising star in Hollywood, he was a war hero with a Silver Star on his uniform. More pictures, but he recognized these from his earlier searches.

On December 2nd, an article on page twenty mentioned that a Victor Sage had gone missing after making wild claims about a government conspiracy. Sage was a nobody, though, and didn't rate the flourished pen, just a quick description and a quote from the Commissioner about how cement overshoes came in "one size fits all."

John wrote it down.

* * *

"Her?" The maid wrinkled her nose as she looked at the photograph of Barbara Gordon that Diana held out to her. "Yes, she's been here."

"Last night?" Wally said.

"Sure. Last night, last Wednesday, the week before that. And the week before that. She arrives late, past midnight, wearing a scarf to cover that red hair, and sunglasses." The maid snorted. "Like she was kidding anybody. We were paid not to say anything but since Mr. Grayson's dead, and Mr. Harper's dead, I guess it's all right for me to tell you now." The girl tucked her short blonde hair behind her ear and glanced at the butler, who stood stiffly by the sink. The other maid, tall and buxom, stood beside the butler, biting her lower lip. Her resemblance to Beatriz made Wally's chest ache and wish he would stop seeing his ex-girlfriends everywhere.

"Who was in the house last night?" Shayera walked the perimeter of the large kitchen and peered out through the door into the dining room.

"Mr. Harper. Mr. Grayson. Miss Gordon. Her. And him." The blonde pointed to her companions.

"You hear or see anything?" Wally asked the Beatriz lookalike.

"Just them, as I was passing Mr. Grayson's door. Doing what they ... always do."

"About what time was that?" Shayera said.

"One-thirty maybe?"

The butler wasn't someone Wally recognized, but he had a familiar line to his jaw; he could have been anyone of the heroes he passed in the lunchline in the Watchtower mess, or maybe it was the guy at the deli who gave him his bagel and cream cheese on Saturday mornings.

The man cleared his throat. "I believe we've told you everything we know."

"None of you heard anything else? A gunshot?"

"No, sir."

"The house was locked up?" Shayera touched the lock on the kitchen door that led out onto a small patio.

"Tight as a drum. Every door and window locked on the first floor."

"So someone would have either had to climb in through a window upstairs, or..." Diana tapped her finger on the table. "Who has a set of keys to the place?"

"Myself. The two maids. Mr. Grayson. Mr. Harper. Miss Gordon. Oh, and the construction company."

"Construction company?" Wally, Diana, and Shayera chorused.

"G&K Carpentry, I believe the name was. They recently completed some renovation on the house. Minor work--new shelves, closets, repairs. The foreman had a set of keys. I don't know if they were returned."

Shayera looked at Wally. "Could be a lead."

"But what would a construction company have to do with Roy Harper and Dick Grayson getting killed?" Diana said.

"Maybe they aren't really a construction company," said the blonde, and winked.

"Maybe you should try detective work instead of being a maid," said Wally. She was cute.

The blonde smiled. "I'm taking a night class."

* * *

They borrowed a phone book and called G&K Carpentry but no one answered. The three of them headed back into the city.

"Guess they close early," said Wally.

The sun was going down over the hills that ringed the city when they stopped outside Diana's apartment building.

"I'll pick you up at nine," Shayera said as Diana got out of the car. "And swing by to collect Wally at nine fifteen." Shayera slid her hands back and forth on the steering wheel, fidgeting. "If it's okay with both of you that I stay on this team?"

Diana stood on the grass between the curb and the sidewalk as if her heels hurt her beyond imagining. "Yes. It's all right with me."

"Goes without saying for me," said Wally.

"Good," Shayera said softly.

* * *

Bruce showed his ID to the guard standing outside the hospital room door and knocked lightly.

He didn't hear a reply, but that wasn't why he hesitated before entering. It didn't matter how much he reminded himself the body at the morgue wasn't really him, and this woman wasn't actually her.

This was still something he never wanted to face, although it sometimes haunted his nightmares: the possibilities, the things that could happen in his real life to the people he knew.

Bruce opened the door.

The window was open a crack, the simple white curtains blowing a little in the early evening breeze. The day was sunny, which made it all so much worse.

Barbara was lying in the hospital bed, her red hair spilling behind her on the pillow. Her face was turned towards the window and the sun hit her face starkly, showing how pale she was.

She turned her head at the sound of his footstep, and the resulting shadows were kinder than the direct sun had been.

"Hello, Babs."

"What do you want," she said, not angry, just tired.

There were two answers to that, actually more than two answers but he couldn't tell her any of them except one.

"I need to talk to you. About what happened."

"I already gave my statement to the police."

"I know. But I need you to tell me. There's a murderer still out there. He might kill others. He might come back for you once he figures out he failed."

"Since when do you care? Why aren't you holed up in your ivory tower while your butler brings you brandy and you keep the doors and windows locked, don't answer the phone, hide from the reporters? Hell, if the police hadn't told you not to, you'd probably be on a plane to a tropical island already."

Sometimes he forgot he wasn't himself, or rather, that they didn't know who he really was. Yet this was a role he'd played often enough. It should be easy to play along.

"I'm one of the suspects and I'm too pretty for prison. So the sooner the killer is found, the easier I'll sleep. Not to mention, he might try to kill me."

She snorted. "That's more like it." Her hand fiddled with the hem of the hospital sheet, her eyes looking down at her hand, studying it. Her fingers stilled. "The doctors said I'm not going to walk again."

Bruce grabbed the metal rungs of the small chair, which concealed the way his hands were shaking. He pulled the chair closer to the bed, and the legs scraped across the linoleum. As he sat down she turned away.

"No." He took her hand, which was too cool and felt too light. "Look at me."

Slowly, she turned back. "All right."

"Tell me what happened."

"We were..." she pulled her hand out of his and rubbed the bridge of her nose with two fingers. Keeping her eyes shut for a moment, she continued. "We were together."

"What time?"

"Around two in the morning."

"What happened right before the shooting?"

"He got up to get a drink, the closet door opened, there was a flash and a bang. I saw him fall. Then there was another flash and a bang. I woke up here." She removed her hand from her face and waved it at the hospital room.

"You didn't see who was hiding in the closet?"

Barbara gave him the glare of someone who has had enough of idiots for several lifetimes. "No. Like I said. Flash. Flash. Bang. Bang." She mimicked a gun with her thumb and forefinger, pretended to pull an invisible trigger twice, then whispered, "You're dead."

It wasn't really her, and he wasn't really him, and that body in the morgue wasn't really Dick, but Bruce got up from the chair, leaned over, and kissed her gently on the forehead. "I'm sorry," he said.

As he left the room he heard the soft sound break from her behind him, and his steps faltered.

It took everything he had not to return to her.

* * *

Bruce drove back to the house that wasn't his, then fumbled for the right key to open the front door. Alfred opened the door just as he found the right one. "Sir! What on Earth are you doing on the front stoop?"

"I was at the hospital." Alfred's look of polite confusion burned him, and he walked past the man who wasn't his oldest friend and sat heavily on the bench in the front hall, his hands on his face. "I had to see Barbara. She was with Dick," he glanced at Alfred to make sure his meaning came across, read the slight distaste on Alfred's pinched face, "when he was killed. The killer almost got her too. Spinal injury. She won't walk again."

"Could she identify the blackguard who shot her?"

"No." Alfred's head dropped, his face reflecting the same pain Bruce felt. "I couldn't stay there with her. God knows I wanted to. She's surrounded by police, though, all of them hand-picked by her father. No one will let the killer back to finish the job."

"Jolly good."

"The police think it was the same person who killed Queen. Dick and Roy were next on the list, and Barbara was just in the wrong place at the wrong time."

"That would make sense, wouldn't it, sir?"

"Nothing makes sense, Alfred. Dick is dead, Barbara's been paralyzed, and I'm not sure that I'm not just sitting somewhere in my own home, cracked up in guilt from what happened to Tim."

"Did something happen to young Timothy the Shoeshine Lad?" Alfred's voice was strained.

"Tim's fine. Here. He's fine here."

"Indeed," said Alfred as he stood. "I think, sir, that you could do with a strong cup of tea, and I think I will join you in one if I might be so forward."

Bruce's mouth curved into a grateful smile. "That sounds wonderful, Alfred. Thank you." He would drink his tea, and he would take a long, hot shower, and he would go see Tim. Just to be sure he was safe.

* * *

In the mirror, he was Matches Malone. Inside the fortress of his thoughts, he was grieving Dick almost as keenly as he would had this all been real.

Though the body was safely secured in the city morgue, Dick's open, staring eyes haunted him, glowering at Bruce from just behind his shoulder. Tim looked at him with those same accusing eyes on the rare times his sanity sparked through the mess that Joker had left.

_"You could have done something. You should have done something."_

Now Dick's voice whispered that same refrain in his mind.

_"You should have protected me."_

Bruce turned away from his mirror. He had to meet up with Tim, give him a job, give Bruce himself a second chance.

When he arrived at the pancake house, Tim wasn't there. Bruce ordered a coffee, and then another. After an hour, he knew Tim wasn't coming. Anxiety gnawed at him, but Dick and Roy had been the only ones killed, Babs the only one otherwise injured. Tim couldn't have been there when things had gone down.

Unless he wasn't important enough to mention at the hospital or the morgue.

Unless he hadn't been killed by the murderer, but taken away and held against his will, and was even now suffering the tender ministrations of a madman.

Bruce stood up, knocking his coffee cup off the table accidentally. It shattered and splashed. "Sorry." He dropped a few dollars on the table for the mess and the breakage, and strode from the café before the voices in his head drove him mad.

Outside, the moon was starting to rise between the tall city buildings, and a cold evening breeze chilled him. He shoved his hands in his pockets and walked against the wind towards his car, a spare older Ford that looked like it might belong to a lowlife like Matches.

He was being followed. The senses that kept him alive on pitch-black Gotham nights were tasting the air, the change in light, and told him at least two people were shadowing him. He shoved his hands deeper into the pockets, grasping a lead weight in each hand. Without his training, the body he was in was good-looking, mildly athletic, and almost certainly dead in any street battle. The weights gave him back some measure of advantage, however small.

As he reached the car, he saw all four tires had been slashed. The parking lot was empty, and while he did see people on the street, all of them hurried by, their faces turned away from something they had no intention of seeing.

Bruce turned around. There were three of them.

"You're late," he said to Tim. "Can't you tell time?"

"Don't even start with me, you bastard," Tim said, growling. "I shoulda been wise to you, all that cash you was flashing, all that talk about my ma." In his hand was a white polishing cloth, a peculiar item to bring to a fight, until Bruce caught the flash of what it was hiding. "You set me up."

"It wasn't a setup. I still got the cash if you want the job, kid."

"You LIAR!" The words echoed in the parking lot. "I was s'posed to be with Mr. Grayson last night. He wanted me to hang out at his place, keep an eye on things while he showed his kitten a good time. Mr. Harper was gonna be in charge of everything, make Mr. Grayson his number one guy. I'da been right in there. But no, you get all talky on me, and I end up goin' home last night and so I ain't there when Mr. Grayson gets plugged." He pulled out his pistol from under the cloth. "How's that sound?"

"Sounds like you got a big imagination, kid."

"Who do ya work for? You one of Sal Valestra's boys? Or Bertinelli's gang? You the one what plugged Mr. Queen?" The gun was pointed at him, wavering. "Maybe Chuckie Sol sent ya."

To either side of him, his friends sneered. Tim had a little gang, then, boys mimicking the gangs that ran Los Diablos like other kids would play cowboys. That these boys looked just like Virgil Hawkins and Richie Foley only twisted his heart a little more. Virgil held a length of chain in both hands, Richie a battered baseball bat. The three had bunched together closely against the wind.

_Mistake,_ thought Bruce.

"I'm a free agent, kid," he said, in one last attempt at reason. "Your attitude is gratin' on my nerves. Maybe one of your pals here wants a piece of the action, instead."

Virgil said, "We don't want nothin' you got." More young foot soldiers in Queen's little army, loyal and stupid. "Timmy the Shoeshine Boy told us everythin' we need to know about you."

"Yeah," said Richie.

Bruce gave up. "So you gonna pump some lead into me, boys? Only it's gettin' cold out, and if Timmy don't get home soon, he'll miss his ma before she goes cattin' tonight."

"Shut up about my ma." The gun wiggled more. Bruce was going to hate himself later for this.

"You know about yer ma. You keep whorin' her out, but you buy that cock and bull story about yer dad? What kind've sap are ya? One of her johns knocked her up and got you, ain't that right?"

"SHUT UP!"

The other two closed in just a touch more, and it was enough. Bruce yanked his hands from his pockets and punched Virgil with one hand and Richie with the other, pounding them both straight into Tim. In one motion, he wrested the gun from Tim's hands and kicked out, sending the boys to a heap in front of him.

Amateurs. If they'd been pros, they would've come at him from three sides and not given him such an easy opening.

As they scrambled to their feet, tangled in Virgil's chain, Bruce pocketed the gun and fled on foot.

Three blocks away, he hid inside a cigar shop, watching from the back of the store while the boys ran by without even slowing.

Damn damn damn.

When they were gone, he sauntered out of the shop and doubled back to look for a payphone so Alfred could come pick him up. As he passed a sewer grating, he dropped the pistol and heard it land with a deep splash.

* * *

Wally woke up with a jolt, staring at the ceiling fan in his bedroom as it rotated slowly. Light from the street shone dimly through the slats of the Venetian blinds.

Maybe it was a dream that woke him, but he couldn't remember what he was dreaming about. Maybe a sound woke him, but he couldn't remember hearing one.

Whichever, he was awake, his skin prickling. His heart was a little too fast, still much lower than his normal heartrate at home, but being in this ordinary body without superspeed had made him very aware of things like that.

Fumbling for the pull-chain of the lamp on the bedside table, Wally sat up, blinking in the sudden light that threw a distinct shadow up against the wall. Wally shouted, startled. His feet got tangled in the sheets as he tried to scramble out of bed, and fell.

"Getting sloppy, West? I haven't been gone that long and your reflexes are already shot?"

The voice was soft, sardonic, and familiar.

"Ques-- Vic?" Wally said from where he sat on the floor.

"Hello, Wally."

The shadow moved, and Vic moved into the light. He had a fedora pulled low over his face, concealing it, and wore a raincoat over dark slacks and a dark shirt, but it was unmistakeably the Question. He reached down and helped Wally to his feet.

"What are you doing here?" Wally rubbed his eyes, trying to clear his head and his vision.

"Oh, you know, I was in the neighborhood. Thought I'd drop by." Vic tossed aside a few pieces of dirty laundry and sat down in the armchair.

"Sure." Wally sat on the bed. "You just wanted to chat?"

"Something like that. Grapevine says you're investigating Macabe's murder, and now Queen's as well."

"Among others," Wally said.

"Los Diablos is getting more hazardous to your health."

"The air quality sucks."

Vic tilted his head to one side. "Sucks?"

"As in sucks eggs," said Wally. "Pollution. Smog."

"I wasn't talking about the smog."

"Somehow I'm not surprised."

"Aren't you going to ask me?"

"Ask you what?"

"Why I'm sitting in your room at two o'clock in the morning? Don't you think I have better things to be doing?"

"Besides sleeping?"

"You and I were never much for sleep."

"True," Wally said, playing along.

"The smog is all a cover-up anyway," Vic added, resting his palm on the arm of the chair.

"For what?"

"Sometime you should ask yourself what's going on up in the hills. You think they put those giant letters up there because they're decorative?"

"They aren't...decorative?"

"They're distracting for a reason."

Same old Vic.

"All right," said Wally. "I'm asking. What are you doing in my room at two o'clock in the morning?"

"Warning you."

"About the big letters on the hill?"

"About the murder of Oliver Queen." Vic leaned forward, putting his elbows on his knees.

"What about the murder?" Wally prompted, gently. For once, Vic seemed reluctant to share his theories.

"It's not connected to the Vixen's death. You think it is, but it's not."

"You know who did it."

"Yes. God help me. Helena Bertinelli."

"She ordered the hit," Wally said. "Why?"

Vic stood up, pulling the fedora down farther over his face. "You know who had her family killed. Blood for blood. That's how the game is played. Only I thought she'd given up the game for me." The hint of a wince showed not on his face, which was near-invisible, but in the twitch of his shoulders. "Because I am, at heart, a sentimentalist. I gave that necklace to her, you know. I've always tried to protect her. We had something like a life together. But she's gone too far this time."

"But you're turning her in?"

"She's a danger to herself. To our son."

Wally paused to turn over that last bit of information.

When he looked up again, Vic was gone with a completeness that would have impressed Bruce.

Eyes burning from all the lack of sleep that seemed to be a new habit, Wally got dressed. There was no point in trying to go back to bed after that.

Instead he went over to the office using the same cab company again. Apparently Wally's car had indeed been repossessed, just like the guy in SUNSET BOULEVARD. Diana had found the records in the files.

He just hoped he didn't end up face down in a swimming pool.

He turned on the light and dug out his files. Huntress hadn't been on his list of suspects for Vixen's murder, and he wasn't sure if she belonged there even now. She had a very specific motive for killing Oliver Queen. Wally chewed on the end of his pencil. If Vic was right, Ollie's murder wasn't connected to Mari's murder after all, though God alone knew how often the Question had been wrong about things in the real world.

Wally scratched out a line of notes and scribbled something else beneath.

* * *

To Be Continued ... 


	11. Chapter 10

* * *

Chapter Ten

* * *

Bruce was midway through his makeup session. Matches was out for now, but with a little improvisation, he could make his face take on other shapes, his voice reach different timbres. All a matter of practice, of design, and he was a master.

He lacked most of his usual assets here. No network of informants. No well-crafted and tested devices, not yet. He didn't know which alleys to watch, which patterns of traffic meant what; worse, because this strange story was built out of his own thoughts and memories, he couldn't trust that these things would work as he wanted, because to be brutally honest with himself, he always expected them to fail at the worst possible time.

Worst of all, he'd gone docile here. There was a murder to solve, now many murders. While he'd begun by gathering data from the rest, none of it was panning out. Clark and John had yet to find anything more than rumor in the back pages of the paper. Wally and Diana were chasing dead end after dead end, surely made even harder now with Shayera's unique brand of detective work thrown into the mix. So far, the best he could was that she hadn't killed any witnesses, at least none that Wally had reported.

J'onn was dead.

He filed the information away like another data point. Vixen was dead, until they figured out this mystery. J'onn was dead for the same period. Arrow seemed dead, as did Speedy and Dick, but the real men weren't here. That wasn't the real Barbara he'd had Alfred send flowers to in the hospital. Babs was alive and well. Somewhere.

Tim was alive and well here. He couldn't accomplish anything on the murder investigations, but he could tail Tim, keep an eye on him, drink in his presence even from a distance, as he watched the sane boy his own Tim would never be again.

The great, booming gong of the doorbell echoed through the house, and from downstairs, he heard Alfred answer, as he looked with pride at the image in the mirror.

A few moments later, Alfred tapped on the door without entering. "Sir? The district attorney is here to see you."

Bruce froze. So much for the disguise. "Show him into the study, Alfred. I'll be right along."

"Yes, sir."

Quickly, Bruce ran water in the little sink in the room and splashed away the makeup. He wiped his face on a threadbare white towel, and slipped his smoking jacket back on as he hurried downstairs.

Harvey Dent waited for him inside. Alfred had just bent over the grate to start a fire. "Hello, Bruce," Harvey said. "Alfred, please leave us."

Alfred set down the matches and nodded as he pulled the door closed.

As soon as he was gone, Harvey had crossed the room in long strides and was suddenly a few inches from Bruce's face. "What the hell is going on, Bruce?"

"You're going to have to be more specific, Harvey."

"You've got dead bodies piling up left and right. Everyone tells me you were doing that Macabe bitch before she was killed." He held up his hand as Bruce protested. "And I don't care. Second, you send that lowlife West and one of your starlets to meet up with the Mayor, who also winds up dead. Macabe's numbers guy dies right after visiting your house. Now Queen's kid is dead, your brother's dead, and I can't help but notice he was sleeping with another of your favorite toys at the time. Bruce, this doesn't look good." Harvey moved in closer, until their noses were nearly touching. "I need to know how deeply you're involved in this. I can protect you." He grabbed Bruce's hand, held it. "Let me help you, Bruce. Before it's too late."

Bruce pulled his hand away, uncomfortably aware of how close Harvey was standing. "I don't need protection. Just tell me you've got men guarding Barbara's door in case that bastard comes back to finish the job."

"She's guarded. You should know, your name is on the list of people not allowed to see her."

"I visited her yesterday."

"She put your name on the list after you left. Bruce, talk to me."

"I swear, I don't know anything. I don't know who killed Mari Macabe. I don't know who killed Dick or J'onn or anyone else."

Harvey went on like he didn't even hear him. "I've deflected the inquiries away from you, God help me. Queen's death was clearly a hired hit. Harper and Grayson were probably the cleanup work on that one, and Gordon's girl was just in the wrong bed at the wrong time. The Commish is ready to call Jones' death a suicide, and I can't say I blame them. Hell, I was at the party on Friday and I know I didn't shoot the Vixen but I'll be damned if I have any idea who did. It could all be a coincidence."

"It is." Bruce didn't believe in coincidences, though. He knew the murders were related, but how? Other than by the fact that the deaths had occurred after their arrival here, what was the one thing they had in common? The matchbook?

Harvey rested his hand on Bruce's shoulder. "I can't let our history get in the way of a multiple murder investigation. If you had a hand in any of these, I'm going to find out. Please, you can confide in me." He took Bruce's hand again. "You always could. You know that."

Bruce pulled out a smile from deep inside. "I do know that. And I appreciate it, considering all we've been through." This pulled a reluctant matching smile from Harvey, and Bruce remembered the good times, the long talks, the double dates and the easy camaraderie. He'd trusted Harvey with all his secrets but one. Probably would have given up that last secret had fate not twisted so terribly and turned his best friend into just another damned soul, or in his case, two.

All of a sudden, the bulb to Bruce's desk lamp sizzled and popped into darkness. Harvey's face went half into shadow, and Bruce twitched and stepped back.

"What the hell, Bruce?"

"Sorry. The lamp. Startled me."

"Whatever you say. Look, I've got to get back to the office. You have my number. Call me if you want to talk about this. I'm your friend. I can be more," again that intense expression, "if you just give me the chance."

"Thanks," Bruce said, not sure what else to say. "I can't imagine needing help right now. As I said, I wasn't involved. But if I do, you know I'll call you. Right?"

"Right," said Harvey. "Take care of yourself, Bruce."

"You too, Harve. And come by more often, all right?"

"I'll do that. Walk me out?"

"Sure." He walked Harvey to the door under Alfred's disapproving gaze. Even as Bruce watched the car turn around in the driveway, he still felt the pressure of Harvey's hand on his shoulder and the look in his eyes. Not the man's normal brand of crazy, just very focused.

Harvey thought Bruce was involved in the killings. Harvey had good instincts, though Bruce knew for a fact he hadn't anything to do with the deaths. There was a bigger picture he was missing, one he'd let be obscured by what was turning into an obsession with Tim. But this world's Tim was a fantasy, an image plucked from Bruce's mind and no more real than the dreams Jervis Tetch had created. That fantasy had been designed to lull him into complacency, just like the Black Mercy. The book, the spell, whoever had designed this trap, wanted the same thing. The first person who fell into it died; the others were slowly killed off or driven mad or, like Bruce, allowed to drift into the delights a fantasy world could create.

Then, like the Mercy, it would devour them.

"Sir? You don't look well."

"I'm fine. Just ... Mr. Dent gave me a little wakeup call." He willed himself to calm. "I'll be upstairs. Please see that I'm not disturbed for the rest of the day."

"You have an appointment this evening. Mr. Queen's wake. Should I cancel your plans?"

"No. I'll go. Should I have an escort, do you think?"

"I would expect so."

"Fine. Contact Miss Prince and tell her that I would be delighted to have her company tonight."

"Yes, sir."

Bruce went back to the spare room and returned to his task. He would still go out in disguise, but not to follow Tim. He had a murder to solve.

* * *

Wally's head hurt. Their fragile truce gone, the girls had gone back to sniping at each other, and his only saving grace lay in not drawing too much attention to himself. At least neither of them had superstrength at the moment, although blunt objects were in great supply.

"We've been over this," Diana said sharply. "You can't keep shouting at the people we're questioning."

Shayera replied, "It's my technique. Then you come in and ask them all diplomatically."

"Not if they've already chased us out of the building and threatened to call the police!"

"Ladies," Wally said with great relief, "we're here." He found a parking spot in front of the little storefront business and couldn't get out of the car fast enough.

"Don't say anything when we're in here," Diana warned as they approached the door. "Let Wally and I do the talking."

"You can menace them silently," Wally said.

"But I ... "

He put his finger to his lips. "Silently."

Shayera glared but closed her mouth. Wally prayed that she'd stay that way, and he thought Diana was doing the same thing. _We ought to make her stay in the car._

A bell chimed as he opened the door, and remembering the era this time, held it for them both.

A woman sat behind the desk, not pretty, but handsome in that way certain women could be if they understood early on that they'd never be Greta Garbo. "Hey, babe," Wally said, leaning comfortably on the counter. "This G&K Carpentry?"

"That what it says on the sign, mister. How can I help you?" Wally still didn't know her face, for obvious reasons, but he remembered Dul's voice, even with the lousy forties accent.

Shayera stepped forward, and then winced as Diana grabbed her arm, hard. Diana said, "We'd like to talk to whoever worked on the Harper place."

"The guys are due back for lunch any time. Have a seat."

"Thanks," Wally said, and the three of them sat down in the small chairs provided. Without discussing the matter, Wally sat in the middle. _Think Switzerland, West._

Sketches of roof cutaways lined the walls, and there was a photo album with black and white shots of different houses. Diana thumbed through the pictures while Wally peeked over her shoulder, seeing the nice places this company had worked on or built.

"There's Bruce's house," Diana said.

Shayera watched as the pages turned. "That's John's. These guys get around." She looked around the office. "Kind of a dump, though."

Diana turned another page. "Isn't this your house?"

The bell chimed again. Wally turned to the opening door, but didn't miss Shayera's sharp intake of breath, punctuated by her nails grabbing and digging into his arm. Carter Hall was the first through the door, but it was his partner that she stared at, trembling.

"Who's that?" he hissed at her, as they stood, Hall coming towards them with an uncertain smile.

"Mr. Kragger," she said calmly to him in greeting. "It's been a while."

"Your broad's talkin' to me again, Joe," Kragger said to Hall. _Joe?_ "Toldja to tell her to clam up."

"She just forgot," Hall said, and positioned himself between Kragger and Shayera as the former walked by irritably. "What are you doing here?"

"We're looking into the murders at the Harper place," she said. "Did you work there?"

He rubbed the back of his neck. "Yeah. We did some remodeling for him last month."

Diana asked, "Do you still have the key?"

"Us? No. Paran, didn't they come by for it?"

"Just the other day," Paran said. To Wally she said, "You could've asked."

"Sorry."

Hall said, "It's good to see you again, Shayera."

She said, distractedly, "Did you notice anything weird about the place while you were there?"

Diana added, "Any killers hiding in the closets, for example?" Wally hid his grin.

Hall shook his head. "Wouldn't that have made things easier? No, sorry. Weapons, sure. And I think we found their opium stash, but you didn't hear that from me. They were mob scum."

"But you took their money," Wally said.

"Gotta pay the bills. I didn't kill them. Pretty sure Paran and Kragger didn't, either, did you, guys?"

"Hell, no," said Kragger. "Customers can't tell their friends about you if they're dead."

Diana said, "Thanks for your trouble, then. We should be going."

Hall said, "I was just about to have lunch. You want to go somewhere so we can talk?" This was entirely to Shayera, and not for the first time, Wally's creep-o-meter pinged in the man's general direction.

"She really can't," he said, taking her arm. "Come on, Shayera."

"Now hold on," Hall said. "I was just being polite."

"Yeah," said Wally. "I'm sure."

"Drop it, Wally," Shayera said.

"Yeah, 'Wally,'" Hall said. "Who is this guy?"

"A friend."

"Another _friend_." The word dripped with meaning.

Shayera let out an exasperated sigh. "Yes. A friend. Wally is my friend. Diana is my friend, too. Kindly stop insinuating that I sleep with everyone I know."

Kragger said, "Commander Talak said she was a pretty good lay. You know, right before she turned on us and let him be burned alive."

"Enough of that," said Dul from her seat, as Shayera went deathly pale. "Don't mind him. He forgets we're Americans now and that the war is _over_."

Hall ignored her. "You never told me you slept with Talak."

"It didn't come up."

"What else are you hiding?!" He advanced on her, but Kragger put a hand on his shoulder.

"I told you she was trouble. All dames are. Come on, I'll buy you a beer."

Hall stared at Shayera and then said, "Get out."

"Go," said Diana, pushing her towards the door. "Before you start _another_ war." Still being pushed by Diana, Shayera led them unprotesting out of the store and to the street.

"That could have gone better," Wally said. "All right. They didn't have a key."

Diana sighed. "But we don't know if the person who picked it up was one of them, or the killer, and we're not getting a description any time soon." She turned to Shayera. "What part of 'silent' didn't you understand?"

"We got what we needed," Shayera said, and got back into the car. "Let's go."

Wally and Diana shared a glance.

Diana said, "I might be able to talk Paran into giving me a description of whoever picked up the key."

"You don't think I should sweet-talk her into it?"

She smiled at him. "I don't think you could. Anyway, you shouldn't go back inside for now. I think Hawkman would try to beat you up."

"That dork? I could totally take him."

She placed a hand on his arm. "Leave this to me." They looked into the window and saw the men had gone into the back room. Diana went back inside. Through the glass, Wally watched the pantomime:

Diana leaned over the counter a little bit, smiling. She said something.

Paran rolled her eyes and said something, pointing behind her.

Diana leaned over a little more, and played with her hair. She said something with a grin.

Paran's head tilted up, and then matched with a shy grin of her own. She looked down at her desk again, but the smile stayed.

Diana said something with made Paran laugh, then cover her mouth.

Paran glanced out the window at Wally and said something. Diana waved her hand, dismissing him. As she brought her hand back, she touched the neck of her blouse, opening it just a bit more.

Wally's mouth went dry as Paran's eyes went up to meet Diana's again. Her eyes went wide, and then she nodded.

Then Hall stormed out of the back, frightening both of them. He took one look at Diana, and out the window to Wally, then yanked the door open so hard that the bell came free and bounced.

Wally stepped back against the car as he saw the gun in Hall's hand. "Shayera!"

She scrambled out of the car on the street side, and stood with the car between her and Hall. Good move. Wally wished he was on the other side of the car too, and not on _this_ side wondering how good a shot Hall was.

"Put the gun down, Joe," she said, edging her way around the car.

"You think I killed them. Queen's boys."

"No," she said, and she was out from behind the car. Wally started to move, and the gun swung towards him. Behind Hall, he saw Diana size him up, ready to grab him. "We don't think you were involved."

"But you came here asking questions. I don't need questions, Shayera. I take the jobs and I don't ask questions, and I don't want them asked. You don't survive in this town with questions."

Wally thought back to his visitor the night before.

"Carter. Joe!"

"Stop calling me Carter!" he shouted, and he turned and fired at Wally. The bullet hit the car two inches away from him and buried itself inside. Wally was unimpressed with what life managed to flash in front of his eyes at that moment, as Hall pointed it directly at him. "Tell your other friend to stop trying to sneak up behind me, or I'll put one in your belly."

"Diana!" Shayera called, but Diana had already frozen to the spot.

"Out here," he ordered, and moved aside for her to walk very slowly in front of him. "Now here's what's going to happen. Shayera and I are going to go have a long talk, just us. That's all. We have a lot to talk about, so we're gonna be gone for a while."

"I don't talk well with a gun in my face," Shayera said.

"You won't have a lot to say," Hall said, and Wally's creep-o-meter pegged the top of the scale and broke. "You and me. Reno. Just like we said it would be."

"Okay," she said. "Yeah. Just like we said. Now put the gun down, and we'll go to Reno."

Diana said, "You're not going anywhere," and the gun raised from Wally's stomach to his head.

"We'll go," Shayera said. "Back to my place. I'll need another dress. Can't get married in this old rag."

Wally turned to Diana and mouthed, "Married?" Diana shrugged.

Hall said, "Get in the truck." Hall's vehicle was parked behind the car.

Shayera gave a quick nod to Wally and Diana. "Don't forget to feed my pet Bat while I'm gone."

"Sure," said Wally.

She got inside, and waited for Hall to join her. Hall looked at Wally, then moved the gun and shot both tires on that side. "Don't follow us." He got into the truck and they drove off.

Diana ran back inside the store. Wally was right behind her, and didn't have time to ask her plan as she said to Paran, "Do you have a car?"

Paran shook her head. "I walk to work."

"Call Bruce Wayne's house. Tell him," Diana paused, "tell him Hawkman just took Hawkgirl and we need backup, her place. Then call the police. Can you do that?"

"Sure," said Paran, mystified.

"Thanks," said Diana, and that grin was back again. Wally could read it a lot clearer in here.

He grabbed Diana's hand. "Come on!"

Outside, the truck was long gone. Wally, feeling the seconds drain by, flagged down a cab.

"Where to, buddy?"

Wally gave him the address of their office. He needed his own gun. As the cab peeled away from the curb, Wally prayed they'd find the hawks in time, that Batman would get the message and come too, that they'd get out of this mess alive and unscathed.

* * *

Bruce didn't get the message.

* * *

John sneezed his way through a paper from September of '45. All the headlines were about the war, though the back articles were if anything even more scandalous. Torrid affairs on the backlots, exposed. An illegitimate child brought into the daylight, and respected police captain Alan Scott has to step down from his position. A mob leader is killed in his own club --- The Emerald Parrot --- and while the rumors swirl around Oliver Queen, no arrests are ever made. Movie grosses break box office records, as some of the troops come home from Europe, until a finicky little man named Temple Fugate embezzles millions and disappears.

Clark wrote something down on his own pad.

"What've you got?" John asked, then sneezed again.

"Bless you. Curry Films again, lost a bidding war with Bruce over a prime piece of real estate."

"What's that got to do with the case?"

"I'm not sure." Clark frowned. "Bless you," he said, just as John went to sneeze again

"Thanks."

"Mari's in the picture with Arthur. There's a note at the bottom about a rumored deal for her to star in a new movie called THE LONELY."

"She didn't," John said, looking at his notes. "She got an Oscar for another movie that year. Bruce lured her back with more money?"

Clark sighed, and sat back. "I hate this. We're trying to put together a puzzle, we don't know what the picture looks like ... "

John finished for him: " ... And the only thing we have to go on is that the pieces all reflect right back at us. Move a little, and the picture changes again." He took Clark's paper from him and stared. "There's got to be a reason why he keeps popping up on the paper. Want to take a trip under the sea?"

"I'm not sure we can get an appointment."

John smiled grimly. "I am."

* * *

The man she insisted on thinking of as Carter shoved the gun into his own lap as he drove them back to her bungalow. Shayera sat calmly in her own seat, not reaching for the weapon.

She ought to be frightened, she knew. There were any number of things that he could do to her, and she lacked her usual strength in order to fight him. But she also remembered her training, the hand-to-hand combat she'd used infrequently yet trained on religiously. She could think of ten ways to kill him right now as they drove on towards her home, double that if she didn't mind making a mess.

Everything was out of her head or the heads of her friends. Someone's image of Carter was of a half-crazed, somewhat dimwitted obsessive. Knowing this didn't narrow it down much.

She tried reason anyway. "If I leave town, the police will assume I'm fleeing prosecution. I'll be a fugitive from the law."

"You didn't kill her. I didn't kill her. That's all they need to know." The truck jerked forward as he pressed the accelerator.

"They want to pin this on someone, and I'm convenient. If I wind up missing, they'll pick me for sure, no matter what I did or didn't do."

"Stop talking and let me think," he said, and lifted the gun, aiming it inexpertly with his left hand while he drove with the right.

The roads became familiar, and soon they'd passed the turnoff to John's house and were closing in on hers. Carter killed the engine and transferred the gun to his other hand. "Let's get you packed."

Shayera let her hands tremble as she unlocked her front door, noting the location of the knives in the butcher block, the relative masses of her rolling pin and a lamp if used to impact his skull. The worst part was, while she knew she was capable of killing Carter easily, she didn't want to do it. Even the thought of injuring him twisted her stomach. She'd seen so much death already, had doled it out on such a large scale, and she'd been trying so hard to find a new path.

She found a suitcase in her closet, and under his careful scrutiny, she dawdled over folding outfits, placing each inside with tenderness. "Hurry up," he said, watching the clock beside her bed.

"These are delicate," she sniped back, with no idea if that was even true. In went a sun dress, a loose cotton caftan, a nightgown.

"Leave that." He yanked it out of the suitcase.

That gave her an idea. Not, she knew, one of her better plans but anything that worked. Shayera put on a little smile. "Why don't we leave for Reno in the morning?" She ignored the gun and sat herself on Carter's lap, lacing her arms around him. "We could stay here tonight one more time, and get on the road just as the sun's coming up."

He pushed her off, almost knocking her to the floor. "Finish packing! Your pals'll be by any minute!"

"Fine." She groused through the rest of her packing, throwing in items at random now. She didn't even know what she owned here, so how could she possibly know what she needed to take? And it wasn't like she was actually going with him in any case.

"That's enough," he said abruptly, as she went through her underwear drawer. "Close it."

Shayera sat on the case until she could get the latch snapped. "Happy?"

"How much cash do you have on hand?"

"How should I know?"

Carter let out a disgusted noise. He grabbed her arm and she allowed him to drag her to the living room. Where were the others? They ought to be here soon. She didn't need a rescue, just a distraction so she could deliver a palm-blow to the back of his neck.

If they didn't come, she'd have to make her own distraction. Carter's head swiveled around and settled on a potted plant. Dropping her arm, he hurried to the plant, and dumped the contents on the rug. Shayera began a sharp retort, when she saw the metal case amid the dirt. Carter bent over to scoop it up, and there was her distraction, ready-made.

With a quick motion, she raised her arm for the chop. She didn't expect his elbow in her stomach, or his iron grasp on her hair as he threw her down. _Okay, bad plan._

"I'm not stupid, Shayera," he said, not looking as she lay there gasping for air. "I know what you did in the war." He clicked open the metal case, and she saw money in large bills. He folded them and stuffed them in his pocket. "That'll get us started somewhere."

Shayera got to her knees and back to her feet. Dirt covered her dress, and she wiped at it with her hand, until he stopped her. The gun was in her face, and she'd lost her one chance at surprise.

"Come on."

They took the truck again. He forced her into the driver's seat. He kept his weapon aimed at her from beside her as she pulled out, the truck lurching in protest as she tried to remember which gear did what. Carter grew impatient with her at each jerk. "Cut it out, Shayera."

"I'm not good at driving this thing." She wanted her wings, wanted to stretch them out on the rising currents and glide for hours, not be trapped inside this little metal box with Carter or Joe or whoever he was in this stupid mass hallucination.

Behind them in the truck bed, cans of paint and turpentine clattered with every turn. In the distance, she heard sirens.

Carter shouted, "Dammit! Get us out of here!"

Shayera turned to him, still trying to shift. "Why?"

He pressed the muzzle of the pistol into her cheek. "Because I said so, and I'm running this operation now."

She knew she could feel pain here as much as she could feel pleasure. She wondered how much pain she'd feel as the imaginary gun spit an imaginary bullet into her mouth, if she'd feel her teeth explode before she lost consciousness. The noon sun beat down on them like a fist, making the already humid air impossible to breathe as she contemplated the agony of a death she'd be able to remember later.

The sirens grew closer as she drove. Wally and Diana would be with them, or behind them. Wally, who'd come to her aid whenever she'd needed him, and loved her like a sister. Diana, who likely wouldn't let her die given a choice, who'd once _called_ her sister in that short-lived golden time before their very first argument.

The road turned and weaved, hugging the outcroppings high above the beach, where earthquake and erosion had left marvelous drops. Oh, to have her wings right now, and feel the salt spray mingle with the hot sun!

"Drive faster," he said, a whining note to his voice.

So she did.

* * *

The taxi followed the police cars as closely as the cabbie dared.

They'd arrived at her house too late. The place was a wreck, with dirt heaped on the carpet from an overturned plant, and half her clothes hangers were empty and tossed to the bedroom floor. Wally's stomach tightened when he saw the rumpled bed, but Diana had told him Shayera always slept like that, so maybe they hadn't been delayed so badly.

As the police pulled up, Diana had told them what she knew: the lead suspect in the Macabe murder had just been abducted by her crazed lover. The sergeant looked at Wally for his nod of confirmation, and he felt the blush start again as Diana rounded on him angrily. He'd put up his arms in his best "Not my fault!" gesture.

The cabbie kept the meter running, and Wally winced when he got back in to follow the cops after they'd given over the make and model of Hall's work vehicle as best as either could remember.

They gave chase.

"He's going to kill her," Wally said quietly, as the police pulled further ahead. "If we don't catch up with them."

Diana said, "We'll get there."

Sure enough, just a few minutes later, the cab slowed as the police cars came to a stop in front of them. Diana tried to see why they'd stopped, and Wally saw the broken rail beside the road, saw nothing but blue-green ocean beyond, and great dark plumes of smoke. Numbly, he got out of the cab, Diana right after him, and they walked to the edge, ignoring the police officers around them.

The white truck had plowed through the barrier and down the sharp incline, scything through palm saplings and the thick brush that carpeted the ground. About two-thirds of the way down, the angle went sharper, and the truck had flipped onto a stretch of rocky beach not ten feet wide. And then it had burned.

Wally felt the intense heat on his face, pushing him back from the edge. The brush nearest the car was already catching fire. He felt Diana's hand on his arm, let himself lean on her.

"We have to get her out of there," he said, his mouth moving and refusing to believe what his eyes were telling him.

"She's already gone." Diana said this in a voice that was not dispassionate nearly so much as devoid of emotion because emotion would be a liability now.

Vixen had died almost instantly. If the coroner was right, J'onn wouldn't have felt anything after the first blow that had killed him. This wasn't quick. This wasn't painless. Wally closed his eyes.

He had to tell John.

* * *

To Be Continued ...

* * *

A special thank you to the folks who've been commenting! You're the ones we're posting this for; otherwise we'd have stop bothering with updating at this site weeks ago. Thanks for making the time worth it to us. You guys are great!

* * *


	12. Chapter 11

* * *

Chapter Eleven

* * *

The receptionist tried to stop them as they came into the office, and Clark had already put his hat into his hand to ask nicely. He was flabbergasted and a touch impressed when John didn't even bother.

"We want to speak to Curry now," John said in a voice that promised big trouble if he wasn't obeyed.

"I'm sorry," she stammered — Lori, Clark remembered, her name was Lori — "Mr. Curry is in meetings all afternoon. If you'd like to make an appointment ... "

John rested his hand on her desk, leaning on it over her. "My name is John Stewart. My wife was Mari Macabe. Mr. Curry will see us now, or my friend Mr. Kent here will make sure everyone sees what I have to say in tomorrow's paper, got it?"

Lori gazed up at the man towering over her, gave a little squeak, and nodded. "I think he might have an opening at four?"

"Now."

She ducked down under him and then scurried over to the office door, knocked once, and slipped inside. From within, Clark heard Arthur's distinctive voice shouting, muffled, through the closed door.

"Did you have to intimidate her like that?"

John said quietly, "She's not the one I'm trying to intimidate. You know what Arthur's like." He held up his hand and wiggled it. Clark knew; the man had cut off his own hand to save his child's life. He redefined the term "alpha male," and it was only the fact that Clark knew himself capable of killing Arthur with his pinky should the need arise that made him confident in the king's presence. Usually.

"Just follow my lead," John said, as Lori opened the door and beckoned them inside.

"You're sending her flowers later," Clark whispered to John. He'd always liked Lori.

"I'll send her a damn florist if this pans out," John hissed back, and then they were inside.

"Mr. Stewart," Arthur said, a professional smile on his face as he rose from behind his enormous desk. "Forgive me for not calling sooner. We all loved Mari, and I was so sorry to hear about what happened."

"Thank you." He shook hands with Arthur, while Clark took note of the chrome hook on the other stump. It was not half so strange as seeing the business suit, or the golden hair pulled back into a neat ponytail.

"Please, sit down. Lori tells me you wanted to chat?" His smile was predatory now. "You and Mr. Kent." A glare, quickly hid, sent towards Clark.

"My wife and I used to talk about everything. Did you know that?"

"_Everything,_ Mr. Stewart?"

John shrugged. "We discovered honesty late in our relationship, but we did find it eventually."

"I see. And yet the dearly departed Mr. Jones was still keeping your favorite bird in a cage for you, wasn't he?" Arthur's smile came back. "We talked about a lot of things, too, your wife and I."

"So she said."

Clark sat and watched the two of them, and swore to himself that he would never play poker with either one again. John was bluffing with no cards, but Arthur wasn't flinching.

Arthur said, "Look, I'm really very busy right now. I have a company to run, actors to audition, bills to pay, and no time to do it and no money, either. Cut to the chase or make an appointment so we can reminisce when I've got time."

"She told me about the film deal, Curry." Not a muscle moved on his face with the bald lie.

And Arthur broke. "If you're here for the money, you're wasting your time. The contract was with her, and terminated with her death."

"Her will says I get everything."

"Unless you've just inherited a 36-24-36 body that I can put in a swimsuit with Ethel Merman, you've got nothing. No up fronts if there's no performance, period." He let out a breath. "Did you tell Wayne about it?"

"Not my business to."

"God knows how he found out, then. She wouldn't have told him. I didn't think she'd tell _you_ until the party."

And that was the sound of the other shoe dropping. Clark looked over at John, who nodded back. Mari's announcement was going to be that she was leaving Wayne Productions. Arthur was desperate for a big name star, and wouldn't have cared about Mari's past as long as people piled into the theatres to see her. No more blackmail, not the kind Clark was doing, and not whatever Bruce was holding over her, either. Maybe she'd have taken the opportunity to leave her unfaithful husband at the same time; Arthur seemed to know more about their relationship than John did.

"Plans change," John said.

"Or people change them for you," Arthur intoned. "Wayne would have lost millions without the Vixen in his films. He's got nobody with her class. If you ask me, and I can't help noticing you didn't, he's the one who killed her." He stood up. "Let me know when the funeral is."

"I will. And thanks."

Arthur smirked. "I just told you that you ain't getting any money, and you're thanking me?"

Clark said, "In case you were wondering, I consider this off the record."

"Good," Arthur said. "I wouldn't mind seeing you dead, Kent, but I'd hate having to clean my rug afterwards. Show yourselves out."

Outside the building, John stopped and looked up at the sky and just breathed for a moment.

"You okay?"

"I'm fine. I haven't tried a bluff that hard in years, not without a backup plan."

"It worked, though it's another dead end if he thinks Bruce killed her."

"Yeah. Remind me how we know he didn't?"

"He told us." As the words left his mouth, Clark realized how stupid they sounded.

"Right." Another deep breath. "I'm going home. I've been avoiding it, but I've got to go plan a funeral."

John drove them back to the _Devil_, and then drove off towards his house. Clark went back up to the office. Jimmy looked up from his desk and said, "You know a dame named Diana Prince?"

Clark set down his jacket and his hat. "Why?"

"She called about half an hour ago. That Hol bimbo's dead. Lane's out covering it now, and Perry'll have your nuts if you don't get out there and snap some pictures."

Clark closed his eyes and wondered how many more friends he was going to lose before this was done.

* * *

The engine purred under his hands as John drove the winding roads back to his place. They didn't make cars like this anymore, huge and hungry yet strangely graceful even in their lumbering fashion. Uncle James had an old street rod he'd souped up in his garage, and John had been allowed to drive it twice, with stern warnings from Uncle James and his grandma not to take it above thirty.

He shifted gears, nudging the car up to sixty just for the love of it, and then shifting down again so as not to get himself killed on these unfamiliar roads.

Something about driving a good car filled him with light, like no other experience. The right radio station, though the ones he really liked wouldn't be founded for decades, and a full tank of gas, and he could just go and _be_.

At last, he pulled off the highway onto the private road that would terminate into his driveway. He took the car into the garage, and went in through a back entrance near the kitchen.

Katma ran into him as he walked past the dining room. "You're back," she said in a voice both surprised and irritated.

"Well, I live here, don't I?"

"I guess. Sir."

"Kat, my memory's fuzzy. What did I do to make you so mad at me?"

She stared at him with an expression he knew right out of training, one that asked if he was drunk, stupid, or pulling a galactic-sized joke just to convince her that all humans were as dumb as algae. His first month in training with the ring, she'd looked at him like that most of the time.

Katma looked down at her maid's uniform, and John had to admit it was fetching on her. They'd never roleplayed. For John, the thrill of being with an alien had sustained the rush for the entire time they'd been lovers, though he still couldn't say for sure what had kept Kat coming back, not without sounding even to himself like a conceited jerk.

"After all I did for you during the war, you dress me up in this and make me clean your wife's house. Meanwhile, you keep that tramp who sold us out to the enemy living in a nice place up the coast. What, if I'd have slept with you again, you'd have put me there?" She folded her arms.

"I'm sorry," he said, because even though he hadn't actually done any of those things, something in his head said he could have.

"_Rhetlea_ on your 'sorry,'" she said. "Sir."

He went to touch her shoulder. "Kat."

She backed away. "Don't touch me. You've got your doxy for that. She's up in the guest room. I wasn't putting her in the master bedroom. Ms. Macabe hasn't been gone a week." Her glare could have lit a small city.

"Thanks," he said, and under her baleful eye, he headed upstairs, reaching the top landing just as the bell downstairs rang.

Mason beat him to answering the door. Wally and Diana stood there on the front step.

"May I help you?" Mace asked, as John came down the stairs.

"Let them in. What's going on?"

They shared a look. Wally said, "Sit down."

John led them into the parlor and shut the door. His pulse raced, fearing the worst. If they'd had happy news, a break in the case, anything, they wouldn't be looking half so somber. "What's happened to Bruce?"

Diana frowned. "Nothing."

"I just left Clark about half an hour ago. Don't tell me something's happened to him."

Wally said, "Shayera was in an accident. She's dead."

Diana said, "We thought you should hear it from us instead of the news."

"She's not dead."

"Not if we find our way out of this, no."

"No, I mean she's not dead here. She's asleep up in my guest room."

Wally broke into a hopeful smile, as Diana asked, "How did she get here?"

"I have no idea. I just got back from the city." His mouth had continued to talk while his mind stayed on Shayera. "Come on."

He left them to follow in his wake as he hurried upstairs to find her. John opened the door to a guest room and found it empty. The next two were also empty. Shayera was in the fourth room, asleep on the bed and facing away from him. The curtains were drawn against the late afternoon light, casting everything in the room in a weird gloomy light. He'd watched her sleep before, unconscious after battles, and later, slumbering after sex. So strange, to see her without her wings framing her, pushing him away if he tried to cuddle from behind her.

He flipped on the switch. She looked terrible: clothes ragged, hair a tangled mess.

"Oh my God."

Wally pushed in past him, and Diana did the same. "Oh please," said Wally, as he sat down beside her still form. He rolled her over, and as he went to do it, John felt a sudden strong urge to yell at him to stop, knowing that she was dead, that someone had left her there as a terrible joke, that there would be blood and burns and worse, that he could possibly survive the death of one woman he loved with his sanity intact, but not the loss of both.

"Don't," he breathed, and then Wally had turned her, and there _was_ blood.

Then her eyes cracked open. "Hey," Shayera said. "Hands off."

Ignoring her words, Wally immediately hugged her, and Diana let out a sigh of relief. "We thought you were dead."

"Good," she said, pulling herself to a sitting position. She noticed John, still standing in the doorway. "Tell me the police think so, too."

Diana nodded. "They did when we left them. They'd just found Carter's body. They were still looking for yours."

"Let them keep looking."

Wally asked, "What happened?"

Shayera frowned. "He got crazy while we were back at the house."

John asked, "What did I miss?"

"Carter Hall kidnapped her at gunpoint," Diana said.

Anger gripped him. "He _what_?"

"It's fine," Shayera said. "I dealt with it." She rubbed her left arm. "Anyway, I jumped out of the truck when it when through the railing." She winced. "I think I sprained something. Possibly a couple of somethings. Anyone got an aspirin?"

"I'll get you one," John said. "Do you want to see a doctor?"

"_R'lyeh_, no. I'll be fine. I just need to disappear for a while."

_Not that you've ever done that before when things got too hot for you._ He said instead, "They'll look for you here. Katma's already seen you."

"She's the only one. Can you ask her to keep quiet?"

"I can try."

"Thanks." And he realized he'd just invited her to stay, and she'd accepted. He finally came into the room, and sat down beside her on the bed.

Diana asked John, "Have you and Clark found anything?"

"Nothing useful. We met up with Aquaman."

Wally asked, "How _is_ ol' Sharkbait?"

Diana said in a warning tone, "Didn't he say that if you ever called him that again, he'd shove his harpoon where the sun does not shine?"

"Yeah, but he's not here right now."

John said, "Mari was going to leave Bruce's studio for his. That was probably what her big announcement was going to be about. Gives Bruce another motive. Arthur thinks it was him."

"He said he didn't do it," Shayera said. "Which doesn't mean he didn't hire somebody else to do it for him."

Diana looked around at the rest of them. John could see her objections to the thought bubbling beneath the surface, before her face calmed. "I think," she said, "the worst part would be that he doesn't even know it yet."

* * *

The Emerald Parrot was dead at this time of day. He would come back later, as wealthy producer Bruce Wayne come to pay his respects at Queen's favorite club during his wake. Diana would be his date for the evening, a cover made much more convincing since according to Alfred, they'd already been planning an outing tonight.

Bruce hated that thought, but the more he found out about the him he was supposed to be, the more it made sense. Diana Prince had been in a handful of walk-on roles, but she wanted to be a star, just like everyone else did. Bruce Wayne made stars out of the people who asked him, if they asked him nicely enough. He'd made Selina a star, and then broken her when he'd been finished with her. He'd made Mari a star, the brightest one in Los Diablos, and if that meant what it did with the others, then maybe the rumors had been true after all.

Diana was slated to be another notch on his bedstand, if she even rated a trip to his bedroom. Barbara had been territorial about that, even as she'd been fooling around with Dick behind his back.

Bruce wanted a drink. He let Matches order one for him, just this once. As he sipped the scotch, frowning at the sharp taste and remembering he didn't actually enjoy it, he took a long look around the club. Someone had killed Ollie, probably someone connected with this place. They'd killed Dick and Roy, too, and probably J'onn and Vixen, though Bruce was willing to consider the possibility of multiple murderers.

Wally and Diana swore Napier's alibi checked out.

He took another drink.

The singer on-stage, Ricky Whatshisname, gave a bow to the half-hearted applause from the audience, and walked off as the house lights went up. No one had seen or heard from Dinah Lance since the morning after the murders, though the word on the street said she'd gone to see what was left of her family up in Seattle.

Someone sat down beside him, and Bruce glanced over. "Zatanna!"

"That's me," she said. "Larry, make it a double, okay?"

"Sure thing," said the bartender, and handed her a drink.

"We're running into problems," Bruce said to her as soon as Larry had moved away. "J'onn's been killed. There are some other characters turning up dead." That was less painful than saying that he'd had to identify Dick's body. He knew Zatanna would understand. "Tell me you and Fate have made progress."

Zatanna sighed. "Always. Always. I _always_ get the nutty ones. Listen, buddy, I save the fortune-telling for the act, okay? No freebies. I'm on my break."

His mouth opened, and then shut. Her costume was wrong, in the cut and the coloring. This wasn't the real Zatanna any more than Larry was the real bartender Alfred hired to work his parties.

"Sorry, lady," he said in Matches' voice. "Thought you was someone else."

"Whatever," she said, and downed her drink. Bruce pushed his own away.

"I know we got off on the wrong foot and all," Bruce started.

"And we're going to stay on the wrong foot," she said, getting up. "Thanks, Larry. You can put it on my tab." She touched her hat, put on a fake smile, and said to Bruce, "I'll be on in ten. For a buck, I'll tell you your fortune then."

He watched her go, noting that her fishnets were the same, at least, though that was no doubt due to the attention he'd so often paid her legs in the past. He sighed.

"Don't worry yourself, pal," said Larry, wiping a glass. "'Tanna's been in a bad mood since that house fell on her sister. Eh?" he said, grinning at his own joke.

Bruce let himself smile and raised his glass. After he pretended to drink, he asked Larry, "Hey, bub. You know anything about the Bertinellis?"

Larry went stiff. "Don't you say that name in here, mister."

"Just askin' a question. I heard a little mouse say somethin' about them." If by "mouse" he meant "Flash," and by "something" he meant "Question was acting crazy again but we know what Huntress was like in the real world," this was a broadly true statement.

Larry dropped his voice. "Listen, everyone's kinda spooked right now. Mr. Queen's gone, his head guys are gone. It's not a time to bring up ghosts, you know?"

"Mr. B's a dead man?"

"Dead as Boston, like my ma used to say. Ollie never shoulda had him whacked. Bad business, killing off the guy above you. Eventually, somebody below you is gonna get the same idea."

"You think Queen was gunned down by one of his own men?"

"I ain't sayin' nothing." Larry continued polishing the glass, though God knew why. His eyes went to the door.

Joker came through, surrounded by a bunch of semi-familiar faces. Harley was on his arm, radiating her normal adoration. "Come on in, boys," Joker said. "We're starting the wake early! Larry, bring my boys some hooch!"

Smiling. Happy. Not a care in the world now that he was the top guy in the mob.

Bruce set his glass down, knowing he'd break it in his hand. "Thanks," he said to Larry, and left him a big tip as he walked out of the club, Joker's laughter in his ears.

* * *

Shayera was half-asleep again, so John saw Wally and Diana out, with a reminder for them to tell Bruce and Clark personally what had happened. Then he asked Mace to make some calls for him.

The coroner's office was busy, but John wasn't taking any more runarounds from them, and went back into Demanding Bastard mode until someone got on the phone who agreed to release Mari's body. The funeral home had no problems at all with John's requests, and were exceptionally helpful in their suggestions. John agreed to them all, regardless of tastefulness or cost. Mari wasn't really dead. This was for show, and perhaps to draw out her killer.

He ate a light dinner, then took up a plate for Shayera. She was still asleep.

John was worried. She'd been non-specific about her escape from Hall. Diana had checked out her injuries as much as she could, but maybe Shayera had a concussion. John set the plate down and then sat beside her. "Hey. Suppertime."

She sat up slowly, eyes unfocused. "What time is it?"

"Six." He brought the plate over. "It's not bad. I can't identify half of what's in there, but I think it's lamb."

"Thanks." She took a few bites and made a face. "Got any curry?"

"Doubt it." He thought he should go and let her eat in peace. He stayed.

"I shouldn't be here," she said after a while.

"Do you want me to take you back to your house?"

"I mean, I should be dead. I should've been killed."

"You weren't. You're a survivor."

She made a noise in her throat and kept eating. When she was finished, she set the plate on the nightstand. Now he really should leave, he knew. Take the plate downstairs, finish what he could for Mari's funeral arrangements, see if he could find her diary after all.

Shayera said, "I killed him. I killed Carter. He was going to kill me, I think. So I killed him first."

"It was self-defense."

"I could have incapacitated him back at my house. I tried. He stopped me. I should've been able to take him down without a problem."

"You're human here. The rules are different."

"So? I still have my training. You don't have your ring, but don't tell me you couldn't kill a man with your bare hands if you had to. Don't tell me Batman can't."

"Are you upset because you're not better than us weak little humans anymore?"

"I don't think that. I never ... I don't." She closed her eyes. "I just didn't think I'd have to kill someone. Except I did, because this is all out of our heads, right?"

"That's the going theory."

"You notice anything funny about that?"

He shrugged. "Other than running into people who've been dead for ten years?"

"Zatanna said we were in counterpart roles to our real lives. But that's not quite right, is it?"

"There was probably a story before we got here. There were going to be changes."

"I don't mean the story. I mean us. What's your biggest fear?"

He moved away from her. "We already played that game with Dr. Destiny. My fear was being trapped as a servant to my ring. Yours was enclosed spaces."

"Not what I mean. You want to know what my biggest fears are? That I'm only ever going to be remembered for the invasion, no matter what else I do. That what I did makes me a suspect for everything that goes wrong from now on. That I'm only going to survive on the kindness of people who have every reason to hate me." She took a deep breath, and he heard the thickness she'd never acknowledge. "That I'm going to end up killing everyone I love, that I'm going to die at the hands of someone I love, and that I'm going to deserve it."

Evening had come, and the room was lit only by the hall light. Shayera was an outline in the darkness.

"I never apologized," she said. "I never said I was sorry for what I did. For everything that happened. I couldn't. I can't. It's too big. I can't ask forgiveness because I can't be forgiven. Not by Earth. Not by Thanagar. I can't make up for anything, but I can go out and do my job, and that's a start.

"But I still do stupid things like, well, Carter. I let him get into my head, but even my subconscious knows he's trouble. That's probably why I was with him. In reality, I mean. A lot of me thinks I deserve to get killed for real, and if it's at the hands of whoever I'm sleeping with, then that's payback too."

"No one's going to kill you. You're too big a pain in the butt to die." He'd intended it as a joke, but the words had come out harder than he'd expected.

"You'll manage it eventually."

"I'm not going to kill you, Shayera."

"You've thought about it, though."

John hesitated before answering, because yeah, he had. Right after the betrayal, right after she'd hit him, when he'd been stuck in the Thanagarian holding cell, or running for his life with the rest of the League. The holding cell especially. He'd been one raw nerve, flinching and angry at every single memory rerunning like a bad commercial in his head. Every lie she'd told him. Every time they'd saved her life, thinking she was their ally. Everything. And he'd spent that long, miserable day on his knees, hands bound, imagining each particular sound she'd make as he crushed her windpipe.

Even after, when she'd turned on her people for Earth's sake, he'd felt like a walking wound, unable to focus on anything but the blood pouring where no one could see. Later, when Luthor had fused with Brainiac and played his little Justice Lord mindgames, John had seen Shayera's double, and he'd touched that rage again, and he'd killed her dead. And then the anger was finally gone.

"I won't say I never did. But I don't anymore."

"No," she said. "You just kill me in different ways now, huh?"

"I don't know what you're talking about."

"Really. Because I could have sworn that you actually sat down and thought out the best way to hurt me without leaving a mark. You stand there and tell me about the future, that you saw it, saw _him_, as real as day and then you tell me you don't want any part of that or him or me. Did you practice in the mirror? Did you go through every possible way of mentioning your time jump, and then decide, 'Hey, this'll be the best way to get her back for everything she did to me?'"

"I told you the truth," he said, reaching for solid ground. "Batman knew. I knew. I thought you should know."

"And Mari?"

"I told her. She took it fine." Truth be told, she'd taken it as well as could be expected.

"I'll bet."

"She's not like you."

"She's a _lot_ like me, and that drives us both crazy. Guess how I know."

Too much time together. They were trying to be friends. "Did she tell you?"

"She didn't have to. Look around. She was the first one to touch the book. This is all out of our heads. You're not worried about her getting killed, not really. But Mari is. She's terrified that spending time with you is going to kill her, especially now that you've told her you saw a future without her, and all that'll be left are a bunch of photographs."

"I never said she wasn't alive in the future." But then, Rex had told him everyone else was dead save himself, Static, and Bruce's successor.

"She knows. I know too. The only way she's going to survive you is by leaving you before it's too late."

"You're awfully big on the psychoanalysis tonight."

She shook her head. "I just checked out her house. It's decorated in her fears. You should take a look. You might learn something."

"You don't get a say in my relationship with Mari." He stood up and grabbed her plate. "If you need anything, ask Katma."

"I don't. I'm going home." She went to stand up, grimaced, and sat back down again, rubbing her right calf. She'd stumbled here, past her own house, staying out of sight from the road and from anyone who might be better suited to aid her. She'd needed help and she'd come directly to him.

There was a poem he'd had to learn in high school about where home was.

"You're staying. Stop arguing and get back into bed."

She complied, if grudgingly. "You know, if you were ever considering that for a pickup line, don't."

He pretended to be hurt. "And now she's critiquing my romantic lines. This is definitely what ex-girlfriends are for."

"I've now managed to kill _two_ of my ex-boyfriends in fiery explosions. You feeling lucky, Stewart?"

He grinned without being about to help it. "Get some rest."

"I will. John?"

"Hm?"

"Thanks."

He closed the door. He stood there for a while, listening, but she breathed too softly to hear. He went back down to the kitchen, placed the plate in the sink, and then gave up. He went into the picture room, as he thought of it, and looked around.

Photographs, film stills, posters, all of Mari, all smiling or flirting or dramatically serious.

Photo albums filled with documented trips across the world, but no children.

Arthur, convinced she was killed because she was trying to escape a life she hated.

"Baby, what was in your head?" he asked to a seven-foot-high closeup of her face. _And what's in mine?_

* * *

A phone woke him from dreams he couldn't remember. Clark stumbled from his bed, through the dark and unfamiliar apartment, and grabbed the telephone.

"Hello?"

"This Kent?" The voice was shrouded by a harsh whisper.

"Yes. Who is this?"

"You're trying to find Helena Bertinelli?"

Clark was fully awake now. The Question had come to Wally and Wally had spilled everything to the rest of them. He'd told Clark right after he and Diana came back with the good news about Shayera, so Clark had dropped his other research to look for Huntress instead. His nosing around appeared not to have gone unnoticed.

"I've got some questions to ask her, yes."

"Be at the docks, Pier 16. Ten a.m."

"Pier 16. Got it. Thank you, mister ... " The phone went dead in the middle of "you."

Clark hung up. Then he picked up the receiver again and asked the operator for Wally's office.

* * *

To Be Continued ... 


	13. Chapter 12

* * *

Chapter Twelve

* * *

John should have looked between the mattress and the box spring first.

"_November 4th: Second week into filming this thing, and I can't get the director to let me act! He wants me to stand there and "look moody," he says. All sorts of directions on how to move my face, and not a scrap of idea how to play the scene. We spent six hours to get one take, and we never got to the part of the scene where I slap Matt. Betcha this one goes way over budget. Speaking of, I was looking over JJ's numbers and I swear half my money disappears without me even knowing where it goes. He says it's for taxes. I say I saw his wife in an awfully pretty set of pearls last week._

"January 12th: Lunch with Claire and Crystal today, but it rained and we didn't linger. Came home but J wasn't here. I asked where he went, but the staff all got that look where they're not telling me something. I think it's her again but I can't prove anything yet.

"January 22nd: I can't be alone with Bruce anymore. I have to smile and pretend he's an old friend, but every time he touches my shoulder or my leg, I want to scream. I wish he'd drop dead. I wish he'd drive home drunk one of these nights and go off the edge of a cliff.

"March 9th: It's supposed to be lipstick on his collar. Wasn't that what my last movie said? Not bite marks down his neck. Part of me wants to hate him. Most of me is too tired to care anymore.

"April 15th: We talked tonight. We should have talked a long time ago. I wish. No, no more wishes."

"Hey," Shayera said, and John nodded vaguely but didn't look up as he kept reading.

"_He says he's leaving her for good. I don't believe him. He told me that before. I need to decide what I want from my life._

"April 20th: Talked with Bruce. I still don't like him, but he's my only out right now. I've told him I can swallow my pride for one more film if he'll keep me. As I was leaving, ran into an old friend. I think D. is Bruce's latest fling. I want to warn her what kind of a rodent he is, but if I do, the bastard will punish me again.

"April 25th: This is exciting! I got a call from Curry last night, and we went to lunch today. He can't pay me as much as Bruce can, but he can give me autonomy. Any role I want. Any thing I want to reject from a part, I can. All in writing. I'm so happy I could shout. There's more, but I don't want to jinx it. Something wonderful."

That was the end. John rubbed the bridge of his nose and flipped to earlier pages. Shayera cleared her throat. He glanced up.

Then he blinked.

"That's a new look."

She grinned under the dark wig, with its long hair pulled into a neat bun, and showed off the black and white maid's uniform. "Katma got me the clothes. I found the wig upstairs. Any idea why Mari had twenty of them?"

He shrugged. "Different looks. She kept her hair short here too." The outfit aside, Shayera looked much better today. Sleep and a bath had worked wonders. If he didn't know where to look for the scrapes, or didn't notice the limp, he'd have been enjoying the view even more.

In his hands was the book telling him how much his affair with Shayera had hurt Mari, and now Shayera was sitting down next to him on his bed, wearing the little maid's outfit, and this just wasn't fair at all.

"Are you okay?" She rested her hand on his shoulder. She was just concerned about him, he told himself.

"Fine, fine. I'm just trying to figure out how much of this came out of her head and how much out of mine. You know?"

"I know." She watched him turn pages. "I thought you'd be back helping Superman with the research."

"He called while you were still in bed. He's got a lead on where to find Huntress."

She stood up. "Why didn't you come get me? We should go help!"

"He said to sit tight. He's got Wally and Diana with him. They'll call if they need backup, and anyway _you_ shouldn't be out in public. You're supposed to be dead, remember?"

"I'm in disguise, stupid."

"If you think anybody's going to be fooled by your 'disguise,' you're not only stupid, but crazy."

"You _like_ me crazy," she said, and she was right there in front of him, bent over in his face, and wow, the uniform fit her even better than it did Katma. Dropping the book, he took her wrists to push her gently away but instead he was pulling her closer. He felt her pulse race under the delicate skin at his fingertips, and this was a very very bad idea, and ...

From downstairs, the phone rang, and they froze. A few seconds ticked by, in which he was hyper-aware of the movement of the lace on her bodice as she breathed, and then he heard Mason's quick steps coming up the stairs. Shayera pulled away from him and turned towards the night table, and looked for all the world like she was dusting.

Mace didn't give her a second glance as he said, "Sir, Mr. Kent is on the phone. He says it's urgent."

* * *

Bruce hung up the phone. "Alfred, I'm going out." He ran up the stairs to the guest room where he'd begun stockpiling equipment. Matches was in a box in the closet. Metal blanks he'd filed to a rough but serviceable flying edge were stored in a false bottom of the dresser. These he took out and put in the pockets of his leather duster, mindful of the sharp points.

The phone rang again. Clark wasn't the patient sort.

As he made his way down the stairs, Bruce could hear the shrieking over the phone, and plucked it from Alfred's ear. At first, he couldn't make anything out among the terrible sobbing, couldn't identify the voice. Not Diana, not Shayera, so immediately lower risk assessment.

"Cold! And I tried to wake him up!"

Selina.

Oh God.

"Selina! You have to calm down. Tell me what happened." But he already knew, in the cold place inside himself which had only grown since the first night Tim didn't come home.

"He's dead. Bruce, Timmy's dead." She broke and Bruce forgot about Clark entirely.

* * *

This? Could be bad. Wally glanced around the edge of the box out of some sense of dramatic stupidity, and was rewarded with gunfire spitting his way.

"Will you stop doing that?" Diana growled at him, as she ripped off the sleeve of Clark's shirt. "Keep that elevated," she snapped at Clark, who had tried to set his other arm down.

"Sorry." Another large crate blocked their view, making a protected corner, and behind them was an otherwise empty pier looking out into the harbor. Wally and Diana might be able to swim, but only as long as it took the gangsters to lean over the edge and shoot them in the water. And Clark wasn't going anywhere.

To be fair, it could also be worse. Clark might be dead instead of bleeding profusely while Diana tried to tighten the tourniquet she'd made from his belt and bandage his arm. Wally could have left his gun back at the office instead of having dropped it ten feet too far away. They might not have thought to call Bruce and John before they went into this situation, so at least the three of them would die knowing reinforcements were in fact on the way. They could be outnumbered twenty to one instead of five armed to three unarmed. And so on. Really, the situation only sucked from a local point of view, rather than a global one.

"Helena!" Wally shouted from behind his box. "We can talk this over!"

"Not on your life, copper."

"We know you killed Queen," Diana said, grunting a little as she tied the bandage. "We know you were taking vengeance for your father's murder."

"You don't know nothin'!"

"Vic told me," Wally said.

Silence.

"You dropped the necklace he gave you at the club. We've got it here. We'll make a trade. We give you the necklace, you stop shooting at us."

"Better idea," said a different voice, a male. That Rayner guy? "We shoot you, then we take the pretty jewelry off your corpse." There was a low snickering from beyond the crates. _Jerk._ "I hope Kara kicks in your teeth."

"Kara's there?" Clark asked, trying to get up.

"No. Sorry." He had to watch saying this stuff out loud. "I think we're screwed."

"They'll come," said Diana, and she crawled over beside Wally. "We need weapons."

"No kidding."

She removed the necklace, puddled the chain into her hand, and held it out for just a moment for the gangsters to see. Her hand shot back just as more gunfire rang out.

"I'm about to throw it into the harbor. Good luck getting it back."

"Don't you dare!" shouted Huntress.

"Let us walk out of here, or the fish get the necklace."

Clark and Wally watched her together. She'd either just struck a deal, or ...

"Get them now!" Huntress shouted, and that was it for the deal. They heard the footsteps crossing the distance, and without even speaking, Wally grabbed one of Clark's arms while Diana grabbed the other, and they dashed towards the water. Wally went to jump, missed on his last step, and slipped, dragging the other two with him.

Cold, disgusting water filled his mouth and nose, and he fought the urge to let go of Clark, the urge to come up for air, and kicked down and away as the goons above the reached the end of the pier and started firing.

_We're gonna die. We're gonna die. We're gonna die._

The little **plinks** of the bullets striking the water carried in his ears as the three of them dove down, and he knew they were going to live only as long as they could hold their breaths. He turned his head to look for Diana on Clark's other side, but she was looking down and kicking, her skirt billowing in the water and restraining her legs.

He heard something familiar but muffled by the water, an inarticulate cry.

_We're gonna die. We're gonna die. We're ... _

Out of air, Wally kicked for the surface, dragging Clark with him. As Wally gasped for breath and tried to keep his head low, he saw Diana come up a few yards away.

There was a huge splash as one of the goons fell into the water beside them. Wally held onto Clark's arm, and watched as Diana swam over to the guy and punched him. He'd already dropped his gun, which would be waterlogged already, and there was another large splash.

Rayner landed in the water next to Wally, already dazed and bleeding from the face. Wally kicked him anyway.

"What's going on?" Clark asked, as Diana continued to beat the gunmen.

"The big scary freak's here," Wally said. Clark didn't look so good, kinda pale and shocky. "Hey Bats! Lend a hand?"

"Hold on," John called from just out of sight. A few seconds later, he leaned over the edge. Then he smiled. "I see we arrived just in time."

Diana said, "Before we'd gotten wet would have been better. Clark's been hurt."

Together, they manhandled Clark over to a ladder and John helped haul him up. The nearly unconscious mobsters followed, and finally Wally and Diana.

Huntress was tied up on the pier glaring daggers at some dark-haired chick, while the last gangster lay motionless on the pier with a bent crowbar beside him. Wally helped John and Diana tie up the others while Clark sank down to rest.

"Where's Bats?" Wally asked.

"No idea," said the brunette, and then Wally's brain did a double-take.

"Nice hair," said Diana, her teeth starting to chatter.

John shrugged off his coat and handed it to her, asking, "Why was she trying to kill you?"

Clark said, "Because we know she ordered the hit on Ollie. We've got our killer."

"Hooray," said Wally. "We get to go home now, right?"

John walked up to Huntress.

"Why."

"He killed my father and took his place. My jerk ex-boyfriend figured it out."

"I don't care why you killed Queen. I want to know why you killed Mari." John spoke quietly, but Wally'd heard that tone before.

Huntress made a noise in her throat, kind of a laugh. "I didn't kill her. I thought you did. Ain't that what the paper said?"

All eyes turned to Clark. "Lois wrote it," he said, not meeting their gaze. "The police announced late last night that they were calling off the investigation. They said Shayera had conspired with J'onn and then he'd committed suicide out of guilt, and Shayera died evading police pursuit. The article implied John was complicit in the plot. I thought you'd been told about the police," he said, finally looking at John. "The rest is just ... "

"Convenient," John answered. Clark nodded.

"But we know that's not true," Wally said. "J'onn didn't kill himself. Shayera's ... " Diana planted a high heel into his foot and then smiled at him as he squeaked in pain.

"Sorry," she said brightly.

Clark asked Huntress tiredly, "Did you kill Grayson and Harper?"

"I ain't sayin' nothing."

Shayera bent over and picked up the crowbar. "I'm thinking you've got two kneecaps that say otherwise."

John grabbed the crowbar away from her. "Stop beating up the extras!"

"That's right," Wally said, taking the crowbar. "We let _Diana_ beat up the extras. Princess?" He handed it over.

Diana took the heavy chunk of metal from him, then glittered a smile at Huntress, who cringed. "I think you sent one of your men to 'shake us down' a few days ago?"

"I didn't kill anybody except that murdering bastard Queen. I don't know who killed the others, and I don't care."

"I should be writing this down," Clark said amiably, patting his soggy pockets for pen and paper. Wally saw how much blood had soaked through his shirt and bandage. He needed a doctor.

Diana said to John and Shayera, "The police will be here any minute. We asked one of the dock workers to call them. You should go."

"Good idea," John said, taking Shayera's arm over her protests. "You're dead, remember?"

"But we still need to solve this stupid mystery. Can I just beat her up a little?"

"You ain't takin' me alive!" Huntress shouted suddenly, and kicked out at Shayera, knocking her aside. Huntress ran for the edge of the pier, possibly expecting to drown herself in the harbor. Wally tackled her to the ground, his foot still throbbing from Diana's little "reminder."

"Shut up," he told her through gritted teeth, just as he heard the first sounds of sirens.

* * *

As the cops ran in their direction, John pulled Shayera into a dark doorway. "Hide!" The doorknob refused to turn in his hand. He pressed up against her, hoping for concealment, hiding their faces. If the police found her alive and disguised, they'd assume the worst; considering the time period, if they _didn't_ recognize her, the two of them would probably be in almost as much trouble just being seen together.

Wally shouted from beyond them: "Over here!" The cops ran past without even looking into their corner, and he breathed a sigh of relief into her false hair.

"That was too close."

Another man ran past them, jogging more slowly, and John shivered. _It's out of our heads. It's out of our heads._

"What's wrong?"

"The guy that just ran by."

"Someone you know?"

"Yeah." He edged his way out of the doorway, watching for lookouts, then led her out.

They should run. They needed to run. But he needed to show her this, too. "See that guy, standing back? Not dressed like a cop?"

She nodded. "Probably the dock worker they asked to call the police."

"That's him."

Shayera tilted her head in confusion, and then her eyes widened as she understood. She took a step forward and John pulled her right back.

"I want to see him. I want to talk to him."

"We can't. You'll get caught. Anyway, it's not really Rex. It's the Rex in my head, and Bruce's."

For a second, he thought she was going to fight him. Then she closed her eyes. "I wanted to meet him. Just once."

He took her hand in his and squeezed. "You will." Her eyes opened again, filled with shock and thinly-disguised hope. "Come on."

Together they made their way out to the street, but he didn't let go of her hand until they reached his car.

* * *

Tired. Clark was too tired. From a distance, he watched the blood seep out of his bandage, felt the sharp pain dull to a throb even as his fingers tingled from the loss of circulation. He wasn't going to die, not like this, but he wanted to take a nap.

"Clark?" Diana knelt beside him, concerned. She took off John's coat and draped it over him. He was too sleepy to tell her that he wasn't really cold. "You need to stay awake."

Medics came, pushing her aside and then strong arms held him under his armpits as he was loaded onto a stretcher. He faded in and out, listening to the voices around him, unable to focus on faces. When he came to again, he thought he was in a hearse and that he was dead. Then he heard the sirens and remembered that sometimes ambulances had been refitted hearses. He was going to the hospital.

He looked human. He was as weak as a human and he bled like a human. The sensible, rational part of him said that he was still Kryptonian and that human medicine might very well kill him. Clark tried to sit up, and discovered he was tied to the stretcher.

"Quiet back there," said the driver.

"Where are my friends?"

"You got me, buddy. Lay down and relax."

Having no other real options, he did. He closed his eyes. When he opened them again, the car had slowed and was pulling to a stop. The hospital?

He felt himself and the stretcher being shoved ungracefully out the back of the car, felt the sway of the stretcher as he was carried, wondered if J'onn had felt this way right before he'd died.

"Mr. Kent," said a voice by his ear. "We're going to administer a general anesthetic before we remove the bullet. We're going to try to save your arm." A mask was placed over his face. "Just breathe normally."

Considering the circumstances, that wasn't an order he was going to be able to follow, and then he breathed because there were no other options, and the sleep claimed him again.

* * *

There were more questions, but this time, Wally was ready for them. Yes, Helena Bertinelli had confessed to the murders of Oliver Queen and his bodyguard, James Jesse. Yes, he suspected she'd had a hand in the other deaths as well. No, he didn't have any evidence tying her to the other murders. Yes, his partner (Diana smiled) had found Bertinelli's necklace at the scene of the first shooting.

Diana continued when it was her turn. Yes, Mr. Kent had been following the story as well. Yes, he'd been given an anonymous tip that had led them here. No, when she said "anonymous," she did _not_ mean she knew who it was. Yes, in fact she would like to be kept updated on Mr. Kent's condition, thank you.

It helped enormously that Rayner rolled as soon as the police started asking _him_. Detective Jordan thanked Wally for his time and effort, tipped his hat to Diana, and then they were let go.

"You know, shweetheart ... " Wally started, as they were leaving.

"Not right now. We need to find out how Superman is doing and I want to know where Batman is."

* * *

No time. No time for disguises. No time for anything, but the drone of the car as he raced --- far too late! --- to the little flat where Tim lived. Had lived.

Shabby building, dark and smelly stairs, but no police. She hadn't called, or they hadn't come, not for gutter trash like Tim Drake.

He knocked.

Selina answered the door with her face red and her breath crystalizing in the air with alcohol. "He's in his ... I couldn't ... " She started sobbing again, and Bruce found himself holding her because arms were designed to hold women sobbing for their dead sons.

Bruce wasn't sobbing. Cold. So cold, and the frigid darkness consumed him as he held her, as he led her into the dingy apartment, past the faded, peeling movie posters with her name in fine print at the bottoms, to the stained couch. He left her there, still weeping, and since there were only two doors to choose from, he found the windowless closet that served as Timmy the Shoeshine Boy's bedroom and tomb.

_This isn't real._

Bruce let it come to him in snapshots of detail, not able to take in the whole scene.

There was a smell. Tim's skin was pink and mottled red, and his mouth encrusted with vomit. His hands were drawn into claws, had ripped his thin blanket in his pain.

The photolens of Bruce's mind focused in on the hands. Bruce bent down, took one stiff arm and turned it as carefully as he could. _This isn't real and I'm disturbing a crime scene._

Under the dirty fingernails.

Purple and green and white.

Three weeks without sleep, three weeks thinking every corner he turned and the boy would be there smiling or swearing or lying poor and naked and broken. Three weeks knowing the League was fully occupied trying to recapture the criminals and madmen Bruce in his hubris had given a head start. Three weeks he had not been able to ask for help.

The colors flickered in his head as he rested Tim's small hand on his chest. Purple. Green. White.

He staggered out of the room, past Selina, who stood. "Where are you going?" He didn't answer and she shouted, "Get back here! Damn you, Bruce, your son is dead, come back here!"

Bruce stoppered his ears to her, his mind wheeling with colors.

* * *

John drove by Bruce's on the way back to his place. "Stay here," he told Shayera, who sat back in her seat and kicked at the floorboards unhappily.

He rang the bell. Bruce's butler answered after a few moments. "Yes?"

"Is Mr. Wayne in? I need to talk to him."

"I'm afraid Mr. Wayne has received some terrible news."

* * *

They met at the crappy apartment where Robin and Catwoman lived. Wally held his nose as the four of them went upstairs together. It wasn't hard to find the apartment, and Alfred had given John pretty good directions anyway.

People were milling in and out, all looking like locals. They pushed their way inside. Catwoman looked up from where she sat, her face streaked and puffy. "What the hell do you want?" She glared daggers at Diana. "Get that tramp out of my home."

John tilted his head and Diana went back out to the hallway to wait. Wally said, "I'm a detective, ma'am, here to investigate your son's death." He wasn't lying.

"He's in there," she said, pointing to where the people walked in and out, looking solemn. "I got no money for the funeral."

"We'll take care of it, honey," said another woman. Livewire, Wally thought it might be. The voice was right.

Inside the tiny room, it was bad. Wally was getting sick of looking at bodies, and this one wasn't any prettier than Ollie's had been, or J'onn's. "Okay," he said to the three other people trying to push in to see and pay their last respects, "I need some room to work. My assistants can stay," he added, noting with some secret amusement the matching glares.

As soon as they were alone, John said, "All right. What we've got ... "

Wally interrupted. "Skin discoloration, bright pink pigmentation. Crusted vomit around the mouth, indicative of nausea. No visible trauma to the rest of the body, though for now victim must remain clothed. Looks like he was poisoned."

He looked back at John and Shayera, who stared at him.

"You know I do this for a living, right?"

"Um," Shayera started.

"It's easy to forget," said John. "What else do you see?"

Wally felt a little glee; he'd heard the respect in the question. He leaned over to examine the body. _Poor kid,_ he thought to himself. _He can't win in any world._

He whistled. "What do you make of this?" he asked them, showing them the stuff under Timmy the Shoeshine Boy's fingernails and digging out a small envelope from his jacket to collect samples.

"Those are Joker's colors," said John.

Shayera said, "Anyone want to place bets where Bruce went?"

"Here," Wally said, handing John the camera Clark had left behind at the docks. "Get some pictures. Closeups on the face and the hands. Clothing too. We don't want to miss anything."

He should definitely not be having fun with this. And he wasn't anymore. Really. But wasn't it nice to be back in his element, doing the work that came by rote?

"I'd kill for a GC-MS right about now," he said, pulling a few hair samples and wondering if he could bum a needle off one of the junkies outside to take some blood.

* * *

When Clark woke up, Shayera was sitting by the side of his bed, still wearing that silly wig.

"Hi," he said groggily.

"Good afternoon. Feeling better?"

Through a throat that felt drier than sand, he asked, "Do I still have two arms?"

She leaned over and counted. "One. Two."

"Then I'm fine." He tried to sit up, found it too difficult, and lay back down.

"You're still feeling the after-effects of the anesthesia. You'll be fine."

"Shouldn't you not be here?"

"Someone had to. John and Diana are trying to track down Bruce. Wally's back at his office, running some tests on the samples he collected." She scowled. "He said I'd be more useful here."

Clark leaned back against his pillow. "I think I missed something."

Shayera explained.

_Poor bastard,_ he thought, nor was it the first time he'd thought it about Bruce or his young protégé. Bruce had been stable, _just_, after having to go identify Dick's body. But he'd held on to his core of reason, his knowledge that Dick wasn't dead in the real world and couldn't be harmed here. Clark had watched the emotion and the logic fight their quick, bright battle all over Bruce's face in less than an instant at the morgue.

Tim wasn't any more real than Dick. Tim couldn't be harmed here, not the least hair on his head. Bruce knew that, had to know that, but the wounds he'd been carrying around since Tim had vanished bled here inside the pages of this book just as much as anywhere else.

"He's gone after the Joker."

She nodded. "That's what we figure. John and the princess are tracking Napier down right now. If they're lucky, they'll find him before Batman does."

There was a slight cough by the curtain that gave them some false privacy. Shayera's head snapped around, but Clark recognized the slim form outlined in shadow behind the curtain, and a bittersweet joy bloomed inside him.

"Kara!"

She stepped around, and that was the sad smile he knew, her golden hair curled and poufed around her shoulders and her deep blue dress just a shade risqué for the time period. "Hello, Clark."

"I didn't ... I didn't think you'd come," he finished lamely.

"Funny. I'm the only other person in L.D. with your blood type, Big Bro. They told me you lost a lot." He noticed her rolled-up sleeve and the small bandage held in place with tape at the inside of her elbow.

"Could be a lot worse." He smiled. "It's good to see you again." He'd replayed her message cube dozens of times. This was no more substantial than that. He didn't care.

"Don't get too mushy on me, Clark."

Shayera stared at her. "Have you been crying?"

Kara let out an exasperated sigh. "Look, lady, I don't really care about Clark's flavors of the month. Can you give us some space?"

Clark glanced at Shayera. "Could you wait outside? Please?"

She glared. "I'll be nearby." She grabbed the newspaper she'd been reading, or hiding behind, and stomped away enough to give them some privacy.

"I am so sorry," Kara whispered, as soon as Shayera was out of earshot.

"It's not your fault."

"Kyle said all they wanted to do was talk to you. Tell you to back off, go bark up another tree. He asked me if you took payoffs, and I told him you did." She buried her face in her hands, sniffling. "I swear I didn't know they were gonna try to kill you."

He thought back to the voice on the phone. It might have been Kyle Rayner. "It's all right. We got them. They're all going to jail for Queen's murder."

"I know!" Her tears flowed. "I shouldn't have said anything. I should've told him to lay low. Now he's gonna rot in prison."

For the first time in the conversation, it dawned on Clark that he wasn't the one Kara was upset about. "You and Kyle?"

"Not anymore. I went to see him. He thinks I warned you. I didn't though," she said with a stubborn pride.

"No," Clark agreed uneasily. "Kara, there are some things I want to say to you. I wanted to tell you before, and I couldn't."

"Don't."

"I have to," he said, trying to sit up again. "This is my last chance. I need to tell you how proud I am of you, of everything you've accomplished."

The tears went angry. "You don't get to make fun of me, Clark."

"I'm not."

"You know who I am, what I've done."

He didn't, but he also didn't care. "That's not important now. Kara, I miss you so much. And I know you're going to leave again, but please, just stay a few more minutes."

"I can't. I have to go get some cash and find a lawyer. Kyle might forgive me if I can get him off the hook. I'll come see you again sometime soon." Her eyes didn't mean it, and he wondered how many lies they'd told each other in this false world, how often this Kara would throw everything away stupidly for a boy she barely knew.

"Can I get a hug?"

She stared at him like he'd grown another head, then leaned over and gave him a quick hug on the uninjured side. Like the pain in his arm, the pressure of her small frame against his neck felt as real as anything, and he savored the moment for all that it was brief. Then she pulled away.

"You been drinking again, Clark?"

"Anesthesia."

"Good stuff," she said. "Take care of yourself, Big Bro."

"You too. Be safe." He watched her leave, then leaned back against his pillows. Shayera came back over, inspected him for any knives sticking out of his body or new gunshot wounds, then sat back down in her little chair. She tried talking to him, but his mind was full of the little girl he'd found asleep and alone on her homeworld, and for all that he made his living with words, he had none left without her there.

* * *

The haphazard lighting at the Emerald Parrot flickered in his eyes.

Colors.

Purple. Tim's lips had gone purple as he lay there dead, as purple as the jacket Bruce had burned in the fireplace.

Green. His hair. They'd dyed his hair. Barbara had spent hours trying to wash it out, cut it short, bleach the rest, anything.

White. Too pale, even as they'd wiped the grotesque makeup from his face.

Red.

When he practiced in the basement, in his home gymnasium, when he pounded the punching bag, the blows never landed right. Too thick, too padded. Not like flesh: the soft covering, slipping over the bones under his fists until the bones cracked and gave way.

White. The teeth should have been white but they were madman yellow and crunched under his shoe as the monster scrambled back on his hands and knees.

The men had tried to stop him. Bruce had been the victor of too many brawls to have any trouble disarming them, beating them with the butts of their own guns. He broke Joker's gun over his head while Harley screamed and ran.

Red.

Red.

Inside him, a tiny voice that could have been Alfred's warned him that this was the path he'd avoided all his life, that he could not come back from here, that he would throw away all he'd achieved and become what he hated.

Red.

Red.

Blue.

"Bruce, stop it!" Her eyes. Blue. Not blue like the sea because the sea was never blue. Blue like time would be, like peace would be. "Listen to me! You're killing him!"

The arms holding him were strong, though not strong enough. He could break free. Diana was only as strong as a human woman now, and while John might be a match, he didn't have Bruce's training.

He could kill them both.

"Stop," she said, chiding him like an infant, and he did.

Bruce saw bodies around him, most groaning. At his feet, the Joker's bloody, broken form, bubbling as he struggled to breathe, one eye gone, the other swollen shut. A bone jutted through from one arm.

"I killed him," Bruce said thickly.

"Not yet you haven't," John said.

"Tim. I killed Tim. I was never there. I was with the League. With all of you here. It didn't have to be Joker who got him. I failed."

Diana pressed her forehead against his. "You found him. When all hope was lost, you found Tim. You brought him home. He's alive. That's what's real. Hold onto it, Bruce."

"No." He shook his head violently. "This is real. This is what we made real. All of it."

"It's what we're afraid of," John said. "What we're afraid we are. What we're afraid of happening. Of doing."

Bruce watched Joker struggle to move. This wasn't real. The real Joker was dead already at Tim's hands. But this was real, too. This was what he'd wanted to do, what he'd longed to do for years, for months, for the three long weeks and that one awful night. This was what he feared he'd become, too.

"We need to go," Diana said, shifting her hold on him. "If they identify you, you'll go to prison."

"I should."

"Lock yourself up later," said John. "Hurry up."

* * *

To Be Continued ...  



	14. Chapter 13

* * *

Chapter Thirteen

* * *

Wally had cleared the table in his office's back storage room and set up what he could as a lab. It wasn't much.

The hardware store carried a few things he needed, the drugstore a few more. Detective West had a battered but serviceable microscope already on hand, and a quick side trip to a bookstore emptied out the last of his cash but found him a few reference books.

The ironic thing was that the books were only filled as far as his knowledge did. While he could flip the pharmacopeia open and see familiar tests written out, the pages between that should have been contained information on other compounds were filled with type in a tiny font that read over and over: "I have no idea what this is. I have no idea what this is." The ones that _were_ filled, such as the poisons, the explosives, and the more basic chemicals, sounded just as much like they were pulled from Batman's head.

But it was a start.

Wally set the book open and started running identification tests on his samples, using tiny smidgens of each and knowing when it was gone, he was out of luck.

No centrifuge to spin down the blood --- he'd sweet-talked Bane out of a single, precious needle --- but he made do. It wasn't as though he needed a clean sample for an LC.

Around four o'clock, someone knocked at the door. Wally almost didn't answer it. John said loudly, "Are you in there, hotshot?"

"Coming." He washed his hands quickly in the little sink and let John in.

"Hey. You find anything?"

"Not yet. Tell me you found Bats."

John nodded. "Not before he tore Joker a new one. Between you, me and the doorpost, I think he finally went crackers. Diana's babysitting him for now."

"Supes?"

"Shayera says he's recovering okay. The doctors want to hold him overnight, so she's going to hang out at the hospital and keep guard. Oh. New plan. We're operating on the buddy system. Nobody goes anywhere alone from now on."

"Are you my buddy?" Part of him was relieved; things always worked better when he and John were doing their Butch and Sundance routine. But he'd kind of liked Diana's Sundance lately, too. Or maybe her Butch. His brain went a little further down that path and then stopped.

"What're we doing?" asked John.

"Right now, we're yelling at me because I can't remember how to do an arsenic i.d."

"Tell me what I can do to help."

It was weird, more than weird, giving GL instructions and knowing he'd follow them. But it worked. John hadn't had chemistry since high school, but he could convert amounts from the grams Wally knew in his head to the ounces on the crappy little scale to weigh them out. He could mix up solutions with the water from the sink, as Wally only grimaced a little each time, and boil them on the hot plate.

As he stirred a blue solution in a mason jar, John said, "You understand that if the word 'Igor' leaves your mouth, I will personally tie your legs around your neck, right?"

Wally grinned. "Hey, tell me if that turns red and clumps at the bottom. _Eye_-gor."

"It did. What's that mean?"

Wally paused. He'd followed a hunch. "The delivery system for the poison. The stuff under Robin's fingernails wasn't makeup. It was sugar."

* * *

"Bruce?"

He wouldn't look at her. He sat in his bedroom, though not really his bedroom, just a room in his mind created for someone who wasn't quite him. No lights, no lamps, nothing but the light spilling in from the hallway.

"That was John on the phone. Wally figured out what the substance was we found with Tim. A kind of sugar. Not table sugar, John said. Wally was excited about it." She sat down beside him, and he wouldn't look, wouldn't unfreeze as she wrapped an arm around his shoulders. "He was poisoned. Bruce, they don't think the Joker did it. Wally's running some more tests."

And that was the end of it. Diana had called the hospital asking after Napier's condition, but they didn't yet have an update. She needed to call back when he was out of surgery. Bruce knew he'd never forget the sight of the Joker's body sprawled on the floor of the Emerald Parrot, knew the Joker in this mad, pretend world was just as dead as the Joker in his, if not from his wounds, from the next in line in the organization while he was weak.

"Bring them in."

"What?"

"The others. Call them all back here. We'll work on it together in the morning." He placed his palms against his forehead. "We shouldn't be separated. Not anymore."

"Clark is still at the hospital."

"Then have Shayera sign him out. Or break him out."

She frowned. "He's been injured."

"It's not real, Diana. We keep telling ourselves that but we need to believe it. Clark will be better off with us than in a primitive hospital, and none of us will be trying to kill him."

"Wally's working on the answer." And wasn't _that_ a strange statement for any of them to be making?

"I'll help him. But not tonight." Tonight was to mourn the dead, and the almost-dead, and the walking dead.

Diana embraced him. He felt her strong arms surround his neck, smelled the clean scent of soap and the vague presence of flowers that always followed her. Then without a word, she got up to go make the calls.

* * *

John set the phone down. "They want us back at Bruce's house."

"Now? We can't. I can't. I'm close. I know it." John had never seen the kid in this kind of state before. Manic, sure. That was the Flash's trademark. This was something different. His face was lit up like he had a fever, and his eyes were bright. It was dawning on John that Wally had an honest to God passion for his work, and that was strange, because for years they'd worked side-by-side and John hadn't a clue how the kid made his rent until recently.

"Diana says Bruce will help in the morning."

That was enough to get Wally to set down the stuff he was working with and stare. "Batman is taking the night off? Did she check to make sure he still has a pulse?"

John smirked. "Is there anything in here that'll catch fire or blow up if we leave it?"

"Probably not."

"Then let's go to the hospital."

"Can I drive?"

"No."

In the car, Wally was still buzzing, like he was on some new drug. Again, watching him tap his fingers and his feet with barely-constrained activity wasn't really abnormal, but the source still amused John.

After a few blocks, John said, "Shayera has a theory."

"About?"

"This place. She doesn't think it's just that we're in roles like ourselves. She thinks it's all about our fears."

Wally stared out the window. "Okay," he said after a few moments. "I can see that. What we're afraid we might be. Not in the creepy Justice Lords way, but the people we are when we're just us."

"Yeah." Some of them were pretty easy to guess. John thought his own fears were written in letters as big as the sign on the hill. Shayera's too, but she wasn't good at subtle. "I'm wondering if we're going at this wrong."

"What do you mean?"

"You're looking for clues, trying to piece together a puzzle. But if this really is based on our fears, then maybe we ought to figure out what we're _really_ afraid of, and that'll be our answer."

* * *

Wally thought this was what he wanted: all them together, where they could keep an eye on each other. But group therapy in the study wasn't how he'd wanted to spend the evening.

He'd gotten a negative on the arsenic i.d., he'd gotten the positive i.d. on the sugar --- monosaccaride rather than polysaccaride with that test --- but instead of following up on any of it, he was sitting in Bruce's library while Alfred, who was an impromptu medic in any world, took a look to ensure Superman wasn't going to die of sepsis or anything after they'd sprung him from the hospital.

And he was hungry. And it was cold in here. And John had gone off to the kitchen to start something for dinner, which was sure to make Alfred squawk even more when he found out.

Wally bent down to the fireplace to look at starting a nice, cheery fire, when he saw something that perked up his day considerably.

"Hello!" Carefully, he picked out about half of a still-unburned photograph from the ashes. He turned it around a few times. Okay, that was definitely a shoulder. That was an eye probably. But if he turned it like this ...

After a few minutes of more or less fruitless searching for something good to look at in the picture, he pocketed it and went back to the fireplace to see if any of the other photos had survived. He found the corner of one picture, and about a quarter of another (or the same one, who could tell?) with a curve of leg.

He really needed to stop now. There wasn't going to be anything good, and if John, or God help him _Diana_ found him poking around for dirty pictures, he'd find out firsthand what it was like to die inside a book. He tossed the corner bit back into the ashes, and saw something white.

Well, a little risk of death was common for every superhero, right? He reached in again.

This wasn't cardboard stock. He'd found a tiny bit of white fabric, mostly scorched. A little more poking, and he'd recovered another few fibers. Someone had burned a piece of fabric in the fireplace, recently if it was still here after the picture-burning incident.

Wally got a little tingle, what he would absolutely never admit he thought of as his Spidey-sense after a comic book character he really liked. He patted his pockets and found another sample envelope, and carefully put the fibers inside. That'd give him something to look at in the morning, and hopefully no one would ask why he was playing in the fireplace if they did pan out to be anything useful.

The door creaked open and he stood, dusting his hands on his pants. "Anybody know how to light a fire?"

A few minutes later, they had a warm blaze going. Alfred had kicked GL out of the kitchen and was making them "something proper for supper." Clark had been given the comfiest spot on the couch by the fire, and the rest of them had pulled up chairs. Wally sat on the floor.

"So who goes first?"

No one volunteered. It was one thing to agree that, yes, the roles they'd been given bore an uncanny resemblance to things they didn't like about themselves. It was another to open up in front of everyone else as to what those things were. Plus, as Bats had pointed out with characteristic mellow-harshiness, they had no guarantees that the piece they needed wouldn't have come out of Vixen's head, or J'onn's.

At last, Clark said, "I have two jobs in the real world, and they both hinge on the suffering of other people. I'm either writing it down or trying to stop it, or both, but if people weren't being hurt, I wouldn't have anything to do. The man I am here uses that. He uses people. And he lets his partner do all the writing while he gets the credit. I've left Lois in the clinch on dozens of stories. I've stopped pulling my weight at the _Planet_ ever since I joined the League and I'm afraid of people realizing that, calling me on it, especially while we've been trying to rebuild. I don't know what I'd say to them. Here I don't have any powers and I can't save anyone, and I can't even fall back on my usual excuse to myself that I was busy saving the world." He took a deep breath. "Tell me again how this is going to help?"

"It probably won't," Bruce said.

"Okay," said Wally. "Ignoring Mister Sunshine for the moment. I'm the detective. Why? It should've been Bats, right? Everybody knows that. We'd have been out of here the next day if everything had been left up to Batman."

"Not that you're bitter," John said.

"I am. A little. Yeah. You don't remember what I do for a living. I solve crimes. I work in a police lab. I have a brain. Supes and I are the only ones in this room with college degrees, but you guys treat me like I ride the short transport beam up to the Watchtower."

Bruce said, "No respect for the class clown."

Wally really wanted to ask Bats who'd peed in his Wheaties, but John had described for him exactly how messed up the Joker had been before he and Diana had pulled Bruce off him. Bruce was not in his happy place.

"So this guy that I am, he's a detective that nobody likes, nobody trusts. Washed-up cop already. Under G.A.'s thumb. J'onn's too. Sometimes I think I really am that screwup. I've used up all my brownie points, and the big case, the one I've got to solve, will just go to nothing because I was off wearing my red pajamas at the wrong time."

He wished he could say he felt better after letting that out, but they were trying not to lie tonight.

Diana said, "You're right that I never went to college. I have wisdom imparted from the gods, and skills taught to me by my mother and sisters, but in your world, I am worth no more than how I look in a dress. My accomplishments are always spoken of in comparison to a man's, usually Superman's. Here, I seem to have embraced that culture, of allowing myself to be judged merely on my beauty, and I earn my keep as the subordinate to a washed-up, worthless detective."

"I never used the word 'worthless,'" Wally said, but there wasn't much point.

"I don't know how that helps," she said. "Unless Vixen's fear was the same."

"It wasn't, but you're close," John said. "She was, she _is_ afraid that she's nothing more than an image, on a page or on a screen." He looked at Shayera. "I did have a look around."

She nodded back. "I still think she's afraid hanging out with us will get her killed. I'm also pretty sure she's right."

"What are you afraid of?" Wally asked her before she and GL could get into it again.

"Oh, nothing much. Getting people killed because I did something wrong again. Killing them myself. Never standing on my own feet again because of a few really big mistakes. Being strung along for the rest of my life by someone who can't make up his mind, and worse, being sure that I don't deserve any better." Before anyone could answer, she said quickly, "And don't any of you dare try to say otherwise or I swear I'll kill you here and now."

Weirdly, the threat lightened Wally's heart a little. Shayera had to be feeling better overall if she was willing to punch people.

John said, "Mine's easy. The situation I'm in is almost page for page what I wake up at night thinking is going to happen five years down the road. And you're wrong," he said to Shayera. "Mari's not afraid that spending time with me will get her killed. I am. I didn't think about it much before, didn't want to, but as much as this place had to be shaped by what she's afraid of, it's just as much shaped by what I have nightmares over. I told you it was my house, too."

Bruce said, "Your subconscious is about as subtle as a tank. J'onn looked up Mari's will. There's a line that says if you have a child with another woman, you lose everything."

Wally watched John's face change, watched Shayera's stay carefully neutral. At least Diana and Supes looked as baffled as he felt.

"Anyway," John said. "You're the one with the most issues. What are you afraid of?"

The door to the study opened as Bats opened his mouth. "Dinner is served," Alfred said. "I arranged the dining room."

"I meant to ask you to bring everything in here," Bruce said.

"My apologies, sir. I will certainly transport the meal."

"Don't. We'll eat in there. We can come back here later."

And like that, he'd gotten out of having to tell. Wally was both annoyed and impressed.

The dining room was gorgeous, as the one in Wayne Manor was, all ivory and crimson and silver. Just like the times he'd been in Bruce's house before, he couldn't help looking at his clothes and thinking he so didn't make enough money to be allowed in the room.

Then he sat down anyway. Alfred brought a large silver soup tureen to the table from a high wooden sideboard and ladled out soup to each of them in fancy, wide-mouthed bowls. Wally, who'd never willingly missed a meal ever since the accident that gave him his speed, dug in with just enough gentility to remember not to slurp. The soup wasn't nearly as tasty as he'd thought expensive soup ought to be, leaning towards the fishy and frankly a bit lukewarm. He took a few more bites to be polite, and sat back, eyeing the nice silver platters Alfred had just brought in, wafting over to him the mouthwatering smell of well-prepared steaks.

His belly rumbled, and he ate another few bites of the fishy soup.

Bruce sat beside him, sipping at his own soup and gazing inwardly on whatever internal hell he'd unleashed earlier today.

"Wally?"

Wally jumped. "Yeah?"

"Tomorrow, I thought we might go over J'onn's car again to see if we missed anything. Do you have any ideas?" Batman didn't look up from his soup at him, so surely he didn't notice the 300 Watt grin Wally suddenly gave him before he covered it with a cough.

"Um. Yeah. That's a good idea. I ran some phenolphthalein swabs earlier from stuff at the murder site, but I couldn't get a positive blood trace. I didn't think about looking in the car."

"You would have."

Alfred cleared the soup bowls away, stacking them with an iron efficiency, and putting Wally's half-eaten bowl at the top. He carried them to the side, and then brought the covered dish around, serving them the steaks at almost the perfect level of cooked for each person, from Clark's well-done portion, to Shayera's that may have been still mooing.

Wally's medium-rare was set before him, stabbed on a serving fork, and Wally grinned up at Alfred to thank him. Alfred pulled the serving fork back, and was for a moment framed against the light with a bloody fork clenched against his chest, stark against the formal white of his gloves.

There were moments, perfect moments, usually when Wally was running so fast the air couldn't keep up with him and he was almost passing out from lack of oxygen and sheer exhilaration, and all his thoughts narrowed into a single line aimed straight at the horizon.

He knew without asking, without thinking, that if he compared the charred fibers in his pocket to those on Alfred's white gloves, they would be a match. Alfred had burned the gloves he was wearing the night of the party. After all, if anyone checked, there would be gunpowder residue all over them.

"Alfred?" Wally asked in a strangled voice, then cleared his throat. "Alfred, got a quick question for you. Those cookies you make, the fancy ones with the frosting? What's your recipe?"

"An old family secret, I'm afraid," Alfred said, going back to the sideboard and setting down the big fork. He lifted another serving dish.

"Oh. They're really good. Can I ask, do you make the frosting with powdered sugar, or with corn syrup?" His heart hammered in his chest, and if Alfred couldn't hear that, maybe he noticed how hot the room suddenly was, and how much Wally was sweating.

"Both. It gives a better texture." Alfred fiddled with the serving dishes, his back turned and his hands hidden. "Of course, I save the cyanide for the marzipan cookies to hide the flavor."

Wally was already turned and ready for the gun, but the play of expressions on Bruce's face as the words sank in would haunt Wally for years.

"Please, no," Bruce said, though Wally was the only one who heard him.

"Stay seated. All of you. Hands above the table, and stop reaching for the knives, my dear ladies, or I will shoot off your hands." The girls both froze.

Bruce sat still, watching him. "Tell me why." Wally thought privately that Bats' damage ran deep; he could've been a little boy asking his parent the same question.

"You don't know?"

"I'm stupid enough not to have realized it was you."

"Yes." Alfred smiled. "You certainly are. Stupid, and vain, and selfish, and sybaritic, and worse. In the Great War, I served my country with honor and distinction, and when it ended, I still had no name and no future. So I came here. Everyone knew that America was the place for a young man to make his fortune. But not me. I served those with fortunes, which led me to you fifteen years ago.

"You were young and brash, your pockets filled with gold, and while people waited in breadlines, you sold them dreams for a penny. I told myself that made you a good man. You sold me dreams, as well. I stayed silent when you paraded your women through this house I tried to keep honorable. I even held my tongue when you made the deals with our enemies: a few lines in a film here, a sympathizer allowed to come safely under your auspices there. It was for the greater good, I thought."

A small line of spittle had formed on his lower lip, but the gun in his hand stayed steady.

"You cavort with fakes and liars and charlatans. You associate with the worst common street rubbish. The women are whores, the men no better, all cowards and greedy fools." He waved his arm, taking the rest of them in with that pronouncement.

Wally caught Bruce's eye, and noticed the very tiny nod. Okay, so they were going to stall him and then, what? Rush him? Why not, he thought after a moment. They'd found him out and solved the mystery, so they'd get out of here anyway, right?

Bruce said, "That explains why you hate me. Why did you kill Vixen and the others?"

Alfred's eyes went big. "I held my tongue! I knew that I would be rewarded for my service and my silence. But then you began talking about that bastard child of yours, Timothy the Shoeshine Lad, and your hazy attempts to reconnect with your brother, and suddenly my rightful inheritance dwindled to almost nothing! Worse, that reptile of a lawyer you keep added a notice that any other offspring you might have would take the remainder of your estate. Any one of the scores of women you've brought under my roof could come forward with a nameless baby and take my inheritance.

"And then that slutty little bitch was going to make her announcement." Wally watched as Shayera dragged John back into his chair. "You ordered me to give the two of you privacy at every opportunity, don't think I didn't know what was going on."

John said, "That's because he was sexually harassing her. By the way, Bruce, remind me to punch you later."

"You killed her because you thought she was going to announce she was having my baby?" Alfred's mouth twisted. "And you took advantage of Queen's murder to make Dick's death look like a mob hit. You killed Harper as a distraction. Did you intend to kill Barbara?" Alfred said nothing, and Bruce continued, "I suppose you did. You were covering your bases. Very thorough. You've always been. You killed J'onn because he saw my will and you thought he was onto you."

Bruce's face went into the crazy look he'd been wearing most of the day. "And with the rest dead, you killed Tim. Gave him a poisoned cookie."

"A plateful. I told him to share with his mother, but the brat gobbled them all down." His tone radiated a mixture of pleasure and disgust. Bruce closed his eyes.

Clark said, "And now you're going to kill us."

"Ah," said Alfred, raising a finger. "I already have."

The weird discomfort Wally'd been feeling in his guts suddenly came into bowel-numbing clarity. He pushed the steak away, but it was the crazily tilting tower of soup bowls, somehow grown to absurd proportions, that drew his gaze. The shock and panic was copied on every face at the table save Bruce's.

_Okay, Batman has left the building._

"Now!" Bruce shouted, and the others were on their feet and piling at Alfred while Wally sat there, gaping.

Startled, Alfred stepped back, and then fired. Bruce went down, a red wound blooming in the center of his forehead. Diana's head whipped around, and she drew breath to scream. The second bullet hit her in the neck, and she fell. Dead or wounded, Wally didn't know.

Wally was on his feet now. When had he ever been the slowest in this group? As Clark reached Alfred, the gun swung out and clocked him hard in the jaw. Shayera had grabbed a heavy-looking candlestick from the table and was swinging it at his head while John rushed his center, knocking him off his feet and making Shayera miss. Another gunshot, and John rolled off him, breath coming in great, heaving gasps as his shirt darkened with blood.

And then Alfred was scrambling for his feet, and Wally was upon him, punching like he'd learned to in junior high to stop the high school boys from jumping him and pinning him down and beating him on his way home. Not pretty, and not by any rules save those of survival, but by God, the old guy stayed down long enough for Wally to wrest the gun away and throw it across the room where it fortunately did not go off.

He landed one decent, solid punch, and Alfred was down for the count.

Shaking with adrenaline, and worse, Wally sat up. "We caught him. We can go home _now_, right?"

No one answered. Bats lay half-propped against a chair, eyes open and sightless. Wally could only see Diana's legs, unmoving on the floor at the far side of the table. John was still alive, but he wasn't going to be for long. Shayera had drawn his head into her lap and was crying silently.

It had all taken significantly less than thirty seconds.

"Supes?"

Clark's breath came in ragged gasps. "The poison. If we die and he doesn't, he still wins. Only witness."

_Crap._

Supes leaned over and away from him and was noisily sick all over the floor. The smell hit Wally and he started to retch. This was how Robin died, his guts turning against him, his blood refusing to take oxygen. As Wally looked at his hand, he saw it start to turn telltale pink. But Alfred would burn down the house with their bodies inside, a wild party gotten out of hand, or one of them on a murderous rampage against the others. Wouldn't matter. They'd be just as dead.

John's gasps stopped. "I'm sorry," Shayera whispered. "I'm so sorry." She'd had seconds on the soup, Wally remembered.

Wally got to his hands and knees, and knew he wouldn't be able to walk. He crawled past Bruce's body, past the overturned chairs, out of the dining room. Where was the phone? The front hall? The kitchen? He'd have only one chance.

He crawled down the hallway, stopping twice to puke. The second time, nothing was left and he lay there dry-heaving, wondering if he'd die just like this. The urge passed, and now it was hard to see, but he pushed himself into the front hallway. Didn't see a phone. Lay his head down on his hands.

Blood rushed in his ears now, like waves or the roar of a crowd. Rock concert. He'd gone to a P-Funk concert three months ago. He started singing under his breath.

A noise interrupted his music, jarring him. Bells.

The phone was ringing.

He crawled.

Across the floor to the stand beside the stairs. Black bakelite, teasing him, three feet above where he lay. Wally took a breath and tried to climb up. Pulled the marble stand over and came _that_ close to crushing his skull. The phone fell. He picked it up.

"'Lo?"

"Bruce? Is that you? Bruce, it's Harvey."

"'Vey? Two-Face?"

"Bruce?"

Wally cleared his throat, tried to make his lips work again. "Bruce's dead. Alfred. Alfred."

"Who is this? Where's Alfred?"

"'M West. Wally West. Pee. Eye. Alfred killed Vixen and Dick Grayson and Roy Harper and Tim Drake. And J'onn. For Bruce's will." He giggled a little. "It was the butler, in the hall, with the pistol."

"What?"

But Wally's fingers had gone numb and he was twitchy all over now, and he couldn't see anything at all but man, he could hear that sweet baseline groove loud and clear, and when he closed his eyes, he could see George Clinton taking the stage.

* * *

" ... really think we should just spring them. Hello!"

Wally was sitting at the table in the conference room, staring down where the stupid book had been. Around him, the others were sitting right where they'd been too, alive and well. Vixen stood beside him, looking lost. Behind her, he saw Zatanna with Dr. Fate, a smile breaking out over her pretty face.

He let out a whoop of joy, and he wasn't the only one. He sprung out of his chair and hugged Vixen, saw everyone else touching hands, smiling. Shayera flexed her wings while Supes looked at the wall like he was trying to see through it. A moment later, John was out of his chair, and Wally got out of the way to let him hug Vix. His relief could have been seen from Mars.

Speaking of which, Wally shot a grin at J'onn. "Welcome back to the land of the living."

Vixen asked, "What just happened?"

"What do you remember?" John asked, still holding onto her hands.

"I came in here. I found a book. I opened it. Then it felt like I was asleep for hours."

"It was a spell," Zatanna said. "But it looks like they broke it."

"Yeah," said Wally. "The butler did it. Who knew?"

"You should have," said Batman, but there was a trace of humor under the words, and affection too. As for whatever else he was feeling, well, Bats had a long history of repressing that sort of thing. Someday, he was gonna make some shrink somewhere a very wealthy man.

Superman asked, "How long were we gone?"

"Approximately nine hours," said Fate.

Diana asked incredulously, "That's all? It felt like days."

"Sometimes dreams feel like they take years," he replied, "when in reality they might last only minutes."

Zatanna said, "Which is Kent's way of saying that it's magic. Don't try logic."

J'onn said, "I think perhaps we should return home and reorient ourselves after this experience."

"Hear, hear," said Wally.

"Meeting adjourned," Clark said. "Though we didn't technically have one."

Vixen asked, "You said nine hours?" Fate nodded. "Damn. I missed a business dinner. So much for that grant."

John said, "I'll bet Mr. Wayne would be happy to reschedule when you explain what happened."

"We'll see." She said more quietly, "Why did Wonder Woman just hit Batman on the back of the head?"

"Sign of affection," said John. "In some cultures, smacking someone on the head is considered a mating ritual. And now we're going to leave before Diana asks me to marry a chair." He nodded to the others, then left with Vixen.

When they were gone, Shayera turned towards J'onn and smiled and took his hand. "It's good to see you again. Funny question. What are you afraid of?"

"Fire."

Wally thought of Beatriz, and then remembered.

"Besides that. Personally, I mean."

"Oh." J'onn closed his eyes in thought. "That none of you really need me, that you can get along perfectly fine without my help." A humorless smile touched his green lips. "That I have no existence of my own, but siphon what I do have from those around me. I see what you are getting at."

She shrugged. "It didn't work. The answer wasn't there."

"Yes, it was," said Batman, and he walked out of the room. With a sigh, Diana stood up and followed him. She exchanged glances with Zatanna. Wally wasn't good at reading those at the best of times. When the looks broke after just a few seconds, he still wasn't sure who won, but it was the princess who walked out behind Bats.

Shayera said to J'onn, "Give Ming my regards." She got up, took Dr. Fate by the arm and said, "Let's grab Inza and Arthur and go get hammered."

"I cannot."

She sighed. "I swear Nabu is the biggest stick in the mud I've ever met. Fine. We'll go, and _I'll_ drink." She led him out, and said over her shoulder, "Later."

"Bye," Wally said, and Clark and J'onn were already on their feet. "Guys? Everyone's going?"

Zatanna cracked her wrists. "I cancelled a show tonight for this. I think I'm going to make an early night of it."

"I want to get home," J'onn said.

Clark sighed. "And I need to find out how much trouble I'm in at work this time. I was supposed to be there hours ago."

_But,_ he wanted to say. _We just went through this weird thing! We were other people! We were dead, even. We should talk about it._

_Not yet,_ came J'onn's warm and welcome thought into his mind. _Give them time._

And then Wally was alone.

He walked out into the corridor. It was empty, and he was glad. He looked at the far end, grinned a little, and sped over there in an eyeblink. Then he zipped back. Then he ran to the cafeteria and out to Ops, and back to the room, and wow, it was good to be back.

* * *

To be concluded ... 


	15. Epilogue

* * *

Epilogue

* * *

The transporter deposited J'onn in the backyard of his home. Not the false yet sumptuous house in his mind, but the quiet little dwelling Ming had owned for ten years and had welcomed him into as his own. 

He pulled out his key and slid it into the lock. There was a single light on in the kitchen. "Hello?"

"There you are," she said, from the hallway. "I thought you'd call if you were late. Up saving the world again?" A smile played at her lips.

"A different one," he said, and even as he reached her, his mind stretched out, embracing her lovely, enrapturing thoughts. J'onn shared with her quickly everything that had transpired, and she accepted the strangeness, as she had accepted all his strangeness, without question and with amazement.

Then there was no time for questions, for she was in his arms, and his mouth had found hers, and he was home.

* * *

Clark arrived back at the office _very_ late, and the only ones around were the overnight staff. He couldn't even get in a story about where he'd been and drop it into the morning edition this time. He sat down at his desk anyway, looking around at the refurbished _Planet_ office as he did. They'd rebuilt on the same site, and put up a plaque with the names of those who'd died in the collapse, and they'd moved on. 

There was an email in his inbox from Perry sent at five with no subject and just the words: "SEE ME." Lois had sent a reminder that they were supposed to be working on the Hernandez piece, but since Clark couldn't be bothered to call or leave his cell on, she was handling the assignment herself and he could read all about it in the morning under her byline.

His Lois would never walk in his shadow. She would however finagle him out of a juicy story anytime she had the chance, and he wouldn't love her half so much any other way.

He went home.

His own apartment felt like a stranger's. He'd gotten used to sleeping on the cot in the back of the _Devil_'s office. But the kitchenette was his, and as soon as he had a couple of hamburgers broiling in the oven, it started to smell like home again.

Ma had left a message on his machine. She'd been calling four and five times a week ever since Kara left, just to talk. Clark called her back while he ate dinner, partially because he knew she would enjoy scolding him for talking with his mouth full, partially because he missed her too. He thought about telling his folks about the events of the past ... Day? Week? He'd just talked to them yesterday as they reckoned things, listened as Pa had told him how the new baby goats were doing.

When Ma ran out of things to tell him, he sent his love to her and Pa, and hung up.

Nothing on television, no one he wanted to talk to, nothing coming down the wire that the League wouldn't let him know about immediately. Just a quiet night at home to remind himself who he really was.

The stationery Ma had given him for his birthday was in his desk. Acid-free paper, to last longer, and he knew how to hermetically seal a container to keep oxygen out. He'd have to find a place to keep it safe, somewhere it wouldn't be disturbed but could be retrieved safely when the time was right. But he thought he could arrange that, too.

At his kitchen table, he put pen to paper: "Dear Kara,"

He paused in thought, and then continued. "I miss you. It's been three months since you left. Every day, I keep thinking you're going to walk through the door. Every day, I'm wrong.

"I don't know if this letter will ever reach you, or if it, like me, will have crumbled to dust. But I have faith it will find you, just as I have faith that you will be happy in this new life you've chosen. I just wanted to tell you some things I never had, no, that I never took the opportunity to tell you while you were still here with me.

"I want you to know how proud I am of you."

* * *

The door chimed. Shayera stopped brushing her hair and said, "Come in!" 

The hydraulics slid open, and John stood outside. "Hey."

Shayera set her hairbrush down. "Hey."

"I wasn't sure you'd still be awake."

"I was hoping to be passed out somewhere else by now, but I couldn't get anyone to go to a bar with me and I hate drinking alone. What are you doing up?"

"I just got off shift." He was still standing in the hallway. "Figured I'd work the end of it anyway."

"I've got watch in the morning."

"If I'm keeping you up, I can go."

"Don't," she said, too fast. "Don't stand there. Come inside already."

He stepped into her room. He hadn't been in here since she'd come back to the League, and he didn't look comfortable standing beside the door, but he was on this side of it and that was what mattered. "I told Mari about our little adventures in fiction. She doesn't remember any of it."

"Well, she was dead."

"Yeah. She was pretty upset about that part. I think maybe you weren't entirely wrong after all."

"Told you."

"She wants some time to think. And talk to her therapist. She was already on the phone with him when I went to stand watch."

"I'll have to ask her for his number. I keep getting told I should see someone."

"Oh no, I'm not letting that idiot tell _both_ of you to drop me for someone better."

She smiled. "Now there's a thought. We both give you your walking papers, and then go find guys with less baggage. We could double date. Then you could find _another_ rebound girlfriend, and Mari and I could bond over how much we hate her while we eat ice cream together."

"I think she and I are going to call it quits."

"I'll have rocky road, and Mari'll have cookie dough." She stopped when her brain caught up with her ears. "What?"

"Mari thinks she's going to die if she stays with me. Sometimes I think the same thing. I don't want to let her go. I really don't. But I don't want to watch her die again, either."

_I held you while you died and it killed me._ "I understand."

"You know," he said, a wisp of a smile on his face, "everyone thought you were dead a few days ago. Wally and Diana came over to tell me."

"I remember. You already knew I was fine."

"Mostly I knew. There was this moment when I thought I'd gotten home too late and you'd died right there from your injuries. And I was afraid. The other deaths weren't real. I knew we'd fix them somehow. But yours would have been too real."

"Like Robin."

"Yeah. And Bruce is more than enough vengeance-filled psychotic for our whole team, so I really don't want to go down that road." He'd come closer, bit by bit as he talked, and now he was just a few feet away. She could reach out and touch him almost. "So when you start talking about how you 'deserve' to die, and let's not even get into who you think ought to kill you, it really pisses me off. I'm not going to kill you, I'm not going to _let_ anyone kill you, and if you manage to get yourself killed anyway, I know damned well I won't survive it. So drop the morbid thoughts, and if we ever have to throw you back on suicide watch again, I will personally come in here and kick your ass. Got it?"

He glared at her sternly, and she couldn't help it. She started laughing. Sure enough, as soon as she did, he cracked another smile.

"Idiot," she said affectionately, and the smile grew wider. "Hey, do you want to go to the canteen and get some coffee?"

He made a face. "The late night coffee up here is terrible." Her heart fell a little. Then John said, "There's an all-night diner in Central City that Wally swears carries the best coffee on the planet. We could go. Maybe talk a little."

Now it was her turn to make a face. "In public? People will see us, even at this hour."

"I know." His eyes were kind as he held out his hand.

The coffee was in fact not very good at all, and the other late-night customers did stare at them, but by their fourth cups, neither cared.

* * *

"How's Tim?" was the first thing Dick asked as he slid into the booth. 

Bruce thought of the dark circles under the boy's eyes, the way Tim woke up screaming, the irrational laughter that burst from him sometimes. But he also thought of Tim's appetite growing better, the first calm, genuine smile in weeks, the way he talked with more confidence to Leslie, or asked Bruce to be careful when he left to patrol.

"He's doing well. Very well."

"Good. I'd hate to think you called me here at three a.m. for no good reason." Dick flipped open a menu with bad grace.

He tried not to think of eyes staring sightlessly upward. "Dick?"

"Yeah?" Dick glanced at him across the top of the menu.

"How are you?"

Dick's eyes went back down to the breakfast choices. "Oh, I'm good. Y'know. The usual." There was a shoulder shrug. "Had some trouble with a drug ring, busted them up, bruised a rib, nothing enough to slow me down, bought the new Playstation, it helps to blow off steam. You should try it sometime," he added, and Bruce knew he was smirking even though the menu hid the bottom part of his face. "Hey," Dick said. "Isn't Barbara joining us?"

It was hard to tell if Dick's tone was just a little too casual or not, but Bruce decided there were some places he didn't have the right to examine. "Yes. She's late." He glanced at his watch. Ten minutes late and the way his throat went a little dry surprised him and yet didn't. Nothing had happened to her, not a car accident on the way there, not illness. She was just late. He closed his eyes to block out the vision of her in a hospital bed with the sunlight falling stark on her pale face.

The door of the diner jangled open and Bruce opened his eyes. Barbara ran in, out of breath, her red hair pulled back in a ponytail that had probably been neater when she'd left her apartment.

"Sorry I'm late. Move over," she said to Dick, her shoulder bumping his to get him to shift in the booth.

"Hi, Babs." Dick slid over closer to the window. "Busy evening?"

"Nothing I couldn't handle. What's the problem?"

"No problem," Bruce said. "Just breakfast."

She glared at him, took a deep breath, let it out, and picked up another menu. "Hm. Waffles sound good."

The waitress came to take their order, and she was no one Bruce knew, although at least two waitresses in the diner knew him by name or least by face, enough to smile at him. She must have started there in the last few months.

She smiled anyway, with an extra wattage for Dick, who pretended he hadn't noticed, then looked at Barbara and away quickly, as if wondering if she had.

But Barbara was looking at the menu. "Waffles. With chocolate ice cream."

"Ew," said Dick. "For breakfast?"

"This from the man who thinks that corn chips are dinner?"

"I'll have the pancakes," said Bruce. "With bacon. And orange juice only if it's fresh squeezed."

"Pancakes? You, Bruce?" Dick put his menu down. "I thought you hated the syrup, too sweet."

"I have a taste for them today."

"Okay. I'll have what he's having," said Dick, and handed the waitress the menu, bestowing a grin on her that had her flipping her hair and checking herself out in the reflective side of a napkin holder at the counter.

This time, Barbara caught it and rolled her eyes. "So what's the occasion?" She asked.

"What do you mean?"

"You aren't in the habit of asking us out. It's not my birthday, or Dick's."

"I can't ask you both out to breakfast?"

Dick put his elbows on the table and rested his chin on his fists. "At 3 am? And no active cases? It's suspicious, Bruce."

"Yeah. You trained us. Question everything. Always an ulterior motive behind the simplest of acts."

They both fixed him with the stares they used to intimidate criminals and he felt surrounded. He resisted the urge to pull at his shirt collar, to loosen his tie.

"You caught me," he said, and put his hands out. "I confess."

The book had found the weaknesses in all of them, and the plot twists had turned out to be of their own making. His own worst fears had been the final clue, and his reluctance to tell it had almost --- no, actually _had_ --- gotten them all killed.

"Well?" Dick said impatiently, like a twelve-year-old. "This has something to do with what happened to the League, doesn't it?"

"Word travels fast," Bruce said, keeping his voice neutral.

"I heard about it from Black Canary who heard about it from Courtney who heard it from Zatanna," Barbara said breezily. "Bunch of gossips."

"What do you know about it?"

Plates clattered back in the kitchen and something sizzled. The early morning conversation at the other tables was a murmured, comfortable background. Cars honked, traffic muttered by, someone's cell phone went off. The TV set over the coffee urns chattered the late-night newsfeed from CNN.

He kept one ear on that, in case there was a fire, a murder, or some other disaster, but mostly he let the sounds of home wash over him.

"That you all got pulled into some kind of a book," Dick said. "Hey, I hear the gossip too. Roy told me."

Bruce thought of Roy's body, cooling on a slab a few feet away from Dick's.

"And it was some kind of magic. Bad sorcery." Barbara took a sip of her ice water.

"Something like that," Bruce said.

"You're not going to tell us more, are you?" Dick said, resigned.

"No."

"Suit yourself." Another shrug. Bruce knew the shrug was genuine; he could tell by now when Dick was covering a hurt, and there wasn't any sign of that. Barbara, however, sniffed, and adjusted her ponytail, not as comfortable with it as Dick was.

"At least you weren't turned into a girl this time," Dick said. "No offense," he added towards Babs, who glared at him.

"I wanted to see the two of you. Just ... like this." Then he added, low so only they could hear, "Without masks." _Alive._

Barbara looked confused, Dick a touch smug, but the waitress arrived with their food, and Bruce quickly discovered that bites of pancake perfectly disguised his relieved smile.

* * *

Wally hit "pause" on the remote as someone else entered the rec room. On the big LCD screen, the black-and-white movie he'd been watching froze. 

"Diana?" He turned lazily in his comfy chair, careful not to upset the bowl of popcorn.

"I thought you'd be asleep."

"It's movie time somewhere down there. Anyway, we were just dead. I don't really feel like sleeping."

"I know what you mean." She sat down in the chair next to his. She was in uniform. So was Wally, and boy, he never thought he'd be so excited to see his stretchy red spandex pajamas again. They were much more comfortable than a suit.

He looked up at the screen, where Myrna Loy was captured in a moment of gazing with fond annoyance at a grinning William Powell. "What are you watching?"

"_The Thin Man_," Wally said. Knowing he was treading on thin ice, he said, "I thought you had plans with Bruce."

"He said he was busy." And that was the end of _that_ conversation, Wally figured as Diana looked back at the television. He pressed _Play_, and they watched in silence for a while.

"I don't see why Nora puts up with him," Diana said suddenly.

"Well, he's smart and he's charming, and ... " Wally stopped. "She solves some of the crimes too, you know. Anyway, she loves him, I guess." He hadn't ever given in-depth thought to the complex relationships of imaginary people before, and he wasn't ready to start now. "Do you want to watch something else?"

"No. This is fine." She was lying, but he figured that since they both knew she was lying, it didn't really count.

Or maybe it wasn't a lie after all. As the plot thickened, Diana started stealing his popcorn, and when the movie finally ended, she surprised him by asking about the sequels, and surprised him even further by a desire to watch them. As she went off to dig them up from the Watchtower's library, Wally took the empty bowl back to the canteen.

They were going to need a lot more popcorn.

* * *

The End

* * *

A/N: In case anyone was confused about Dick's comment at the end, please feel free to check out our previous story, "The Fuzzy End of the Lollipop." Also, if you have finished reading this, you have spent a couple hours of your life reading our little novel. Congratulations and we hope you enjoyed the experience as much as we did. This is dedicated to our beta readers and the people on LJ and JLA Unlimited who were so kind when we posted it last month. :) 


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